On Thursday, American justice announced that it had apprehended in Cyprus a Russian-German suspected of having illegally exported electronic components for military use to Russia.
Thus, Arthur Petrov, 33, with dual German and Russian nationality, was arrested in Cyprus last Saturday at the request of the American authorities and is being prosecuted for “violations of export rules, smuggling, fraud and money laundering”, announced in a press release the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, under the authority of the Department of Justice.
“Arthur Petrov organized the smuggling of American micro-electronic technologies to Russia, intended for military application, the kind of components used by the Russian armed forces in their illegal invasion of Ukraine,” thundered the Deputy Minister of Justice Matthew Olsen.
According to the ministry, the final buyer is a Russian company from Saint Petersburg, Electrocom VPK, which supplied Russian arms manufacturers. The Russian-German 30-year-old, if ever charged and tried in the United States, faces up to 20 years in prison.