New Jersey man pleads guilty in smuggling scheme to aid Russian war effort

NEW YORK — A New Jersey man who was among seven people accused of smuggling electronic components to help 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 ring that sought to purchase sensitive electronics for Russia’s military and intelligence services, a Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.

Yermolenko, who lives in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey and holds dual US and Russian citizenship, was indicted along with six others in December 2022.

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

Exporting the technology violated US sanctions, prosecutors said.

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

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that Yermolenko “joins nearly two dozen other criminals our KleptoCapture task force 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 at 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 buy 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, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and is awaiting sentencing.

Another, Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian Federal Security Service officer, was arrested in Estonia and extradited to the United States. He was later released from US custody as part of a prisoner exchange that included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and others.

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