NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday charged five Russian nationals and two traders for Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela for sanctions evasion and other charges over a scheme to ship Venezuelan oil to Russian and Chinese buyers.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Russian nationals Yury Orekhov and Svetlana Kuzurgasheva also procured military technologies from U.S. manufacturers and shipped them to Russian end-users, including sanctioned companies.
Orekov was arrested in Germany on Monday. Another Russian national charged in the case, Artem Uss, has been arrested in Italy and the United States is seeking his extradition, prosecutors said. Reuters could not immediately reach any of the defendants for comment.
U.S. law enforcement is seeking to prioritize enforcing sanctions on Russia to pressure the Kremlin to stop its invasion of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New YorkEditing by Chris Reese and Grant McCool)
