The EU General Court on Feb. 26 rejected the sanctions delisting application of Aleksandra Melnichenko, wife of sanctioned Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko.
A North Carolina business owner pleaded guilty last week after trying to export accelerometer technology with military uses to China without a Bureau of Industry and Security license, DOJ said. David Bohmerwald, owner of the electronics resale business Components Cooper Inc., faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison
Ray Hunt, an Alabama resident and business owner, was sentenced this week to five years in prison after pleading guilty in July to conspiring to illegally export U.S.-origin goods to Iran, DOJ announced. The agency said Hunt conspired to ship parts used in the oil and gas industry to Iran and submitted false export information to the U.S. government (see 2211300011). He worked around U.S. restrictions by using third-party transshipment companies in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, routing payments through UAE banks, and lying to shipping companies about how much the exports were worth to stop them from filing export information in the Automated Export System.
A federal court in Kentucky found that Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations licensing requirements for technical data don't violate the First Amendment as a restriction on free speech. Judge David Hale of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky said the licensing requirements "advance important government interests unrelated to the suppression of free speech" and don't burden "substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests" (United States v. Pascoe, W.D. Ky. # 3:22-88).
Gal Haimovich, an Israeli national and owner of a freight forwarding company, was sentenced last week to two years in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty in September as part of a scheme to illegally ship aircraft parts and avionics from U.S. manufacturers and suppliers to Russia (see 2409110018). DOJ said Haimovich -- who admitted to deceiving U.S. companies about the destination of the goods, some of which were sent to a sanctioned Russian airline Siberian Airlines (see 2412090012 -- also forfeited $2,024,435.44 to the U.S. government.
DOJ charged an Ohio-based subsidiary of a Russian aircraft parts supplier and three of its current and former employees with illegally exporting aircraft parts from the U.S. to Russia and Russian airline companies, DOJ announced.
The U.S. defended its designation of Chinese lidar company Hesai Technology as a "Chinese military company" in a Feb. 12 brief at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, responding to a host of arguments from Hesai claiming that the designation wasn't backed by substantial evidence and committed various legal errors (Hesai Technology Co. v. United States, D.D.C. # 24-01381).
Authorities in the Dominican Republic seized an aircraft used by sanctioned Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA) at the request of the U.S. government due to alleged sanctions and export control violations, DOJ announced.
An indictment was unsealed Feb. 4 charging Wisconsin resident Mark Buschman with selling firearms and related parts to buyers in Saudi Arabia without a license, exporting the items and "lying to federal prosecutors about it," DOJ announced. Buschman allegedly ran an "illegal export conspiracy" for more than five years, February 2019 to December 2024, and now faces a maximum of 42 years in prison and up to $1.5 million in fines.
Sergei Zharnovnikov, a Kyrgyzstan national, was charged this week with illegal smuggling and conspiring to illegally export firearms from the U.S. to Russia. Zharnovnikov, who faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted, traveled to the U.S. last month for the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show in Las Vegas, where he was arrested.