New Jersey man pleads guilty in smuggling scheme intended to aid Russia’s war effort

NEW YORK (AP) — A New Jersey man who was among seven people charged with smuggling electronic components to aid Russia’s war effort pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and other charges, authorities said.

Vadim Yermolenko, 43, faces up to 30 years in prison for his role in a transnational procurement and money laundering network that sought to acquire sensitive electronics for Russian military and intelligence services, Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.

Yermolenko, who lives in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey and has dual U.S. and Russian citizenship, was indicted along with six other people in December 2022.

Prosecutors said the conspirators worked with two Moscow-based companies controlled by Russian intelligence services to acquire electronic components in the U.S. that have civilian uses but can also be used to make nuclear and hypersonic weapons and in quantum computing.

The exporting of the technology violated U.S. sanctions, prosecutors said.

The prosecution was coordinated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency entity dedicated to enforcing sanctions imposed after Russian invaded Ukraine.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in statement that Yermolenko “joins the nearly two dozen other criminals that our Task Force KleptoCapture has brought to justice in American courtrooms over the past two and a half years for enabling Russia’s military aggression.”

A message seeking comment was sent to Yermolenko’s attorney with the federal public defender’s office.

Prosecutors said Yermolenko helped set up shell companies and U.S. bank accounts to move money and export-controlled goods. Money from one of his accounts was used to purchase export-controlled sniper bullets that were intercepted in Estonia before they could be smuggled into Russia, they said.

One of Yermolenko’s co-defendants, Alexey Brayman of Merrimack, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty previously to conspiracy to defraud the United States and is awaiting sentencing.

Another, Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service, was arrested in Estonia and extradited to the United States. He was later released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange that included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and other individuals.

The four others named in the indictment are Russian nationals who remain at large, prosecutors said.

By KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press