Two officials of an Iraq-based weapons dealer -- Syrian national Mohamad Deiry and Lebanese national Samer Rayya -- were charged with conspiring to ship munitions from the U.S. to Sudan and Iraq without a license, DOJ announced. An indictment, unsealed April 15, alleged the pair violated the Arms Export Control Act and conspired to commit money laundering to advance the "illicit procurement activities."

Ross Roggio of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, was sentenced on April 15 to 70 years in prison for torturing an Estonian citizen in 2015 in Iraq and for exporting weapons parts and related services to Iraq, DOJ announced. Roggio was convicted in May of "exporting weapons parts and services to Iraq" without approval, shipping "weapons tools to Iraq," smuggling, wire fraud and money laundering. He sent firearms parts and tools and "illegally trained foreign persons in the operation, assembly, and manufacturing of the M4 automatic rifle," DOJ said.

A former North Korean official serving in Thailand, Myong Ho Ri, was charged with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions, bank fraud and money laundering, DOJ announced.

The U.S. last week transferred thousands of weapons and rounds of ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces that were confiscated from unflagged vessels en route to Yemen from Iran as part of a civil forfeiture action, DOJ announced on April 9. The shipment included "over 5,000 AK-47s, machine guns, sniper rifles, and RPG-7s, and over 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition."

Former Venezuelan General Cliver Antonio Alcala Cordones was sentenced to 260 months in prison on April 8 for "providing material support" to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced. Starting in around 2006, Alcala Cordones leveraged his position in the military to aid the FARC, including by providing "high-powered weapons to the FARC." He pleaded guilty to "providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization" and transferring firearms with reasonable cause to believe they "would be used to commit a federal crime of terrorism."

Two Russian nationals living in Florida pleaded guilty this week to conspiring to violate the Export Control Reform Act by illegally shipping aviation technology to Russian end users, DOJ announced April 4.

The Bureau of Industry and Security on April 2 renewed the temporary denial order for Russian air cargo carrier Aviastar for one year after finding it continues to violate U.S. export controls. The agency said the airline has continued to illegally operate aircraft subject to the Export Administration Regulations, including for flights within Russia and between Russia and China.

Fares Abdo Al Eyani of Oakland, California, was sentenced March 29 to 12 months and a day in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for "conspiring to export defense articles and attempting to export defense articles" to Oman, DOJ announced.

Switzerland-based international commodities trading firm Trafigura Beheer will pay over $126 million after pleading guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing Brazilian government officials to obtain business with state-owned oil company Petrobras, DOJ announced.

Latvian citizen Oleg Chistyakov was charged with violating U.S. export laws as part of a scheme to ship "sophisticated avionics equipment" to Russian companies, DOJ announced last week. The agency noted Chistyakov is the third person to be charged in connection to the scheme, which was led by Kansas company KanRus Trading Co.