A smuggler is said to have supplied Russia’s military from Hamburg. US investigators see links to oligarchs and a governor.
“Let’s just get it out of Germany and complete the delivery.” FBI investigators accuse several Russians of having supplied US military technology to the Russian army from Hamburg. According to the US Department of Justice, the main suspect O. was arrested on Monday in Germany, where he has been running an import and export company in Hamburg for many years. The 42-year-old is now to be extradited. So far, no confirmation has been received from German law enforcement authorities.
Straw men for Deripaska?
At the same time, according to US information, police forces struck O.’s partner U. in Italy. The 40-year-old is the son of a Russian governor close to the Kremlin. According to the commercial register documents available to t-online, both men each hold half of the shares in the company in Hamburg. However, they are said to have acted as straw men for a sanctioned oligarch in the aluminum business, which points to Oleg Deripaska. U.’s governor’s father has been considered a candidate for the aluminum industry since he took office around 20 years ago and maintains contacts with Deripaska.
The indictment now published by the US Department of Justice, which is accompanied by sanctions, does not skimp on detailed descriptions. She repeatedly quotes from e-mails and other electronic communications between the parties involved. Apparently, the men’s US business partners also testified before a grand jury. The result is an astonishingly detailed picture of the incriminating evidence, even for US indictments. If those arrested are convicted in a US court, they face decades in prison.