A Russian-American businessman accused of illegally exporting sophisticated microelectronics to the Russian military will remain under arrest and be transferred from Houston to New York, a US federal court in Houston, Texas, ruled Thursday.
The businessman, Alexander Fishenko, 46, was ordered to remain in custody by US Magistrate Judge George C. Hanks Jr., who called the suspect a flight risk.
Fishenko, owner of Houston-based Arc Electronics, was arrested last week together with seven of his employees on suspicion of illegally exporting the technology. Two of his fellow suspects, Sevinj Taghiyeva and Viktoria Klebanova, were also ordered by Hanks to be kept in custody and transferred to New York.
The suspects are accused of violating export bans to supply the cutting-edge technology to the Russian military and intelligence services.
Federal prosecutors have also charged Fishenko with money laundering and with operating in the United States as an unregistered agent of the Russian government—the same charge filed against a ring of accused Russian spies arrested and subsequently deported by US authorities in 2010.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for October 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
