Two Kansas men were arrested Thursday on federal charges for violating U.S. export laws by selling aerospace-related technology to Russia, the Justice Department said.
The men, Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky, 59, of Lawrence, Kan., and Douglas Edward Robertson, 55, of Olathe, Kan., owned and operated KanRus Trading Company, which supplied electronics installed on aircraft to Russian companies and provided equipment repair services used in Russian-made aircraft.
The program, which also included device repairs, was already illegal when it began in 2020, according to the Justice Department said in a statement. But it was exposed as the United States cracked down on illegal exports to Russia since invading Ukraine a year ago.
After the February 2022 invasion, the men continued to export Wester avionics — the electronics that include communications, navigation, flight control, and threat detection systems — without applying for or obtaining a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Mr. Buyanovsky, the company’s president, and Mr. Robertson, an airline pilot who helped operate the company, each face 13 charges including conspiracy, exporting controlled goods without a license, forgery and failure to provide electronic export information, and smuggling of goods against U.S. Right.
The maximum penalties for each case range from five to 20 years in prison. It was unclear if the men had legal counsel.
In a November 2020 incident detailed in the indictment, Mr. Buyanovsky listed the value of a computer component as $100 on an invoice when the true value of the transaction was $10,950.
In January 2021, Mr. Robertson quoted a customer $28,769 for repairs on a device, but the shipping label and invoice undervalued the repaired device at $2,275.
Mr Robertson told a customer in 2022 that an invoice would need to show a transaction of less than $50,000 to avoid “more paperwork and transparency”.
“This is NOT the right time for either of these,” Mr Robertson said in an email, according to the indictment.
Mr Buyanovsky and Mr Robertson arranged for the shipment of goods to “transshipment points” in Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus and Armenia to disguise Russia as the ultimate destination, the indictment said.
The United States has imposed a wide range of sanctions against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, including shutting down Russia’s largest banks, imposing trade restrictions and reducing technology sales. The Justice Department’s KleptoCapture task force, which led the investigation into KanRus, has pushed for enforcement of sanctions and export controls against Russia.
“The task force will continue to use all of the Department’s tools and agencies to combat efforts to circumvent or subvert collective action taken by the U.S. government in response to Russian military aggression,” the Justice Department said.
