ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Virginia freight forwarding company and two of its senior officials were sentenced Friday for conspiring to illegally export millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. goods and technology to Russia in violation of federal export controls.
Eleview International Inc., based in Chantilly, was ordered to pay a $125,000 fine and placed on three years’ probation. The company’s owner and chief executive, Oleg Nayandin, 54, of Fairfax, was sentenced to three years in federal prison. Vitaliy Borisenko, 39, of Vienna, who oversaw day-to-day freight operations, was sentenced to one year in prison.
All three were convicted of conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Prosecutors said that between February 2022 and June 2023 — after the U.S. Department of Commerce tightened export restrictions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the defendants orchestrated a scheme to ship restricted goods to Russia by routing them through third countries.
Eleview operated a freight consolidation and forwarding business and ran an e-commerce website that allowed Russian customers to purchase U.S. goods directly from American retailers. The items were shipped to Eleview’s warehouse in Chantilly, where they were consolidated and forwarded overseas.
After new export controls were imposed, Nayandin and Borisenko allegedly arranged for shipments to purported end users in Turkey, Finland and Kazakhstan, knowing the goods were ultimately destined for Russia. Prosecutors said the defendants made false statements to other freight forwarders about the true end users and consignees to conceal the shipments’ final destination.
In one scheme involving Turkey, Eleview exported 23 shipments of telecommunications equipment to a fictitious end user. The equipment was intended for a Russian telecommunications company that supplied the Russian government, including its Federal Security Service. Authorities said the items had military applications, including use in developing and expanding communication networks for the Russian military.
In a separate scheme involving Finland, Eleview sent 83 shipments through a sham end user that did not conduct legitimate business. Before consolidating packages for shipment, employees affixed Russian postal tracking labels to each box to streamline delivery once the goods reached Russia, according to court records. The exported items included electronic components identified by the Commerce Department as critical to Russian weapons systems, including components found in so-called “suicide” drones used in Ukraine.
Prosecutors said the company also exported approximately 52 shipments through an entity in Kazakhstan that advertised its ability to deliver goods into Russia. Those shipments included controlled, dual-use items subject to U.S. export regulations.
As part of its probation, Eleview must submit compliance reports twice a year and require export-control training for employees.
