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A 50-year-old Bulgarian national, Milan Dimitrov, was arrested in Greece and extradited to the United States in August. Dimitrov and his co-conspirators allegedly used a Bulgarian company to Transship Radiation-Hardened Integrated Circuits to Russia in violation of U.S. Sanctions.
According to a press release issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, “Milan Dimitrov allegedly conspired with Ilias Sabirov, 52, of Russia, and Dimitar Dimitrov, 74, of Bulgaria, to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA) in a scheme to procure sensitive radiation-hardened integrated circuits from the United States and illegally export those components to Russia through Bulgaria without the required licenses from the U.S. government.
“The indictment alleges that between at least May 2014 and May 2018 the defendants used the Bulgarian company Multi Technology Integration Group EEOD (MTIG) to receive export-controlled items from the United States and transship them to Russia without the required licenses.
“ According to the indictment, Sabirov is the head of two Russian companies — Cosmos Complect and OOO Sovtest Comp. — and controls MTIG. Both Dimitar and Milan Dimitrov worked for Sabirov at Cosmos Complect and MTIG.
“As alleged, in 2014, the defendants met with the supplier of the radiation-hardened circuits in Austin, Texas, and were informed that radiation-hardened circuits could not be shipped to Russia because of U.S. trade restrictions. Sabirov then established MTIG in Bulgaria to purchase the controlled electronic circuits, which did not require a license for export to Bulgaria. The radiation-hardened properties of these circuits made them resistant to damage or malfunction in the harsh outer-space environment. The circuits were controlled for export to Russia for these very reasons. The parts were shipped to Bulgaria in 2015, and MTIG soon thereafter transshipped them to Sabirov’s companies in Russia. OOO Sovtest Comp. transferred over $1 million to MTIG for the parts.
“In the same timeframe, MTIG — at Sabirov’s direction — ordered over $1.7 million in other electronic components produced by another U.S.-based electronics manufacturer. MTIG bought these parts to fulfill part of its contract with OOO Sovtest Comp. Again, the parts were shipped from the United States to Bulgaria, where they were merely repackaged and then shipped to Russia.
“In late 2018, a Department of Commerce Export Control Officer interviewed Milan Dimitrov during a visit to MTIG to determine whether the radiation-hardened components were still in MTIG’s possession in Bulgaria. Milan Dimitrov, among other things, falsely denied sending the components to Russia.
“Milan Dimitrov is charged with two counts of IEEPA violations, one count of money laundering, and one count of making false statements to the Department of Commerce in violation of the ECRA. Each count in the indictment carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
Sabirov and Dimitar Dimitrov remain at large. The two were charged in the same indictment in December 2020 with two counts of IEEPA violations and one count of money laundering.”
The arrest has caused a furor in Bulgaria, where the move is seen as bullying and intimidation by the United States. The country’s leading opposition figure, Kostadin Kostadinov, said the prosecution is purely political. He is leading a fundraising effort in the Bulgarian Parliament to help with Dimitrov’s defense. “A Bulgarian citizen has been rotting in foreign prisons for almost two years, a year and a half in a Greek prison and more than a month in a US prison,” the Vazrazhdane leader told the media. “The Bulgarian citizen's name is Milan Dimitrov, he is practically a hostage of a foreign country.”
