The Department of Justice recently announced that Douglas Edward Robertson of Olathe, Kansas, the former vice president of “KanRus” Trading Company pleaded guilty Tuesday for his role in a conspiracy to circumvent U.S. export laws by filing false export forms with the U.S. government and continuing to sell and export controlled avionics equipment to customers in Russia without the required licenses from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
As a result of Tuesday’s guilty plea, Robertson faces a statutory maximum penalty of five years in prison for the conspiracy count, 20 years in prison for each of the two Export Control Reform Act counts, and 20 years in prison for the money laundering count. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Oct. 3.
According to court documents, as part of his guilty plea, Robertson admitted that between 2020 and when he was arrested in March 2023, he conspired with others – including co-defendants Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky of Lawrence, Kansas and Oleg Chistyakov, aka Olegs Citsjakovs, of Latvia – to smuggle U.S. avionics equipment to users in Russia, as well as Russian end users in other foreign countries, by knowingly filing false export forms and failing to file required export forms with the U.S. government. In these forms, Robertson and his conspirators lied about the exports’ value, users, and end destinations.
Robertson admitted that after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and the U.S. government tightened export controls with Russia, he, co-defendants Buyanovsky and Chistyakov, and other conspirators continued to purchase and export U.S. avionics equipment to customers in Russia and took numerous steps to hide their illegal activity from law enforcement, including by lying to U.S. suppliers about the intended end users; shipping goods through companies in Armenia, Laos, the United Arab Emirates, and Cyprus; continuing to file false export forms with the U.S. government; and using foreign bank accounts in countries other than Russia, such as Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, and the Czech Republic, to promote their illegal activity.
In December 2023, Buyanovsky, the former President and owner of KanRus, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and money laundering and consented to the forfeiture of over $450,000 worth of avionics equipment and accessories, and a $50,000 personal forfeiture judgment.
On March 19, Chistyakov, a former KanRus broker, was arrested in Riga, Latvia for his role in the illegal smuggling scheme. Chistyakov remains detained in Latvia pending extradition proceedings.
The FBI and the Department of Commerce’s Office of Export Enforcement are investigating the case. The Latvian authorities are assisting the investigation. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection provided substantial assistance.
