A Brooklyn businessman with triple citizenship has been nabbed for allegedly playing a middleman in a tech-transfer thriller aimed to strengthen Russia’s military muscle, the Justice Department said. Ilya Kahn, 66, accused of sidestepping U.S. sanctions by sneaking hundreds of thousands of semiconductors to a sanctioned Russian company with links to the military and spies, was arrested in Los Angeles, per the feds. Kahn, who calls both Brooklyn and Los Angeles home, is now facing charges for a supposed years-long scheme to export sensitive technology from Uncle Sam’s backyard, potentially aiding Russia's arsenal.
According to the sheets handed to the court, Kahn owns two companies, Senesys Inc. and Sensor Design Association, both supposedly cozy behind their 'security software' fronts – but in reality, experts in the shell game of acquiring and exporting electronics under the radar from the U.S. to Joint Stock Company Research and Development Center ELVEES; the Russian outfit got the red flag from Commerce Department and Treasury Department following Vladimir Putin's unasked-for invasion of Ukraine early last year, and the alleged dealing didn't stop even after the invasion, Kahn is accused of rerouting semiconductors via Hong Kong, when a Taiwanese company manufacturing the chips for ELVEES ceased their direct deliveries post-invasion.
"Violations of U.S. sanctions and export control laws that aid Russia and other hostile powers endanger our nation's security and will be met with the full force of the Justice Department," declared Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, with the Justice Department's National Security Division, in a statement. Along with the FBI and the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, they're singing from the same hymn sheet: this kind of alleged technological tango with adversaries cannot and will not fly. Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew S. Axelrod emphasized the necessity to block the flow of chips and advanced tech to those abetting Russia's "unjust war" in Ukraine.
During this high-tech high-wire act, Kahn supposedly played fast and loose with export laws, shuffling the restricted goods across international borders through a shipping company based at JFK Airport in New York and a Hong Kong-based shipping company, eluding the required licenses for items controlled for national security, and anti-terrorism reasons; according to court documents, the complex shell game even roped in a Taiwanese manufacturer, a call from Russia, and a sidestep to a Chinese company, said Businessman to Hong Kong like a global pass-the-parcel with national security at stake and the complaint doesn't shy from painting Kahn as a mastermind behind all these moves, if convicted, the tech contrabandist could be looking at up to two dimes in the clink.
The collaborative clamps on this case stretch between the Disruptive Technology Strike Force – a Justice and Commerce Department’s tag team, and Task Force KleptoCapture, focused on enforcing the full swath of biting sanctions and countermeasures slapped on Russia for its unwelcome march into Ukraine. Still, it's worth noting that a complaint is merely a charge; Kahn, like anybody else lined up before Lady Justice, has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in the scales of a court of law. The case is currently in the hands of a legal entourage including Assistant U.S. Attorneys Craig R. Heeren, Artie McConnell, and Matthew Skurnik from the Eastern District of New York, with Trial Attorney Scott Claffee of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section lending a hand—all assuredly determined to see this ballet of justice pirouette to its final act.
