A U.S. federal court has convicted three people for their role in a scheme to smuggle sophisticated microelectronics to Moscow for use by Russian military and intelligence agencies.
Alexander Posobilov, Shavkat Abdullaev, and Anastasia Diatlova were convicted by U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, on October 26 after a month-long trial.
The three were indicted in October 2012 along with eight other people who worked at a Texas company called Arc Electronics. Prosecutors said they sold over $30 million in microelectronics from 2008 to 2012, circumventing U.S. laws that forbade it.
The nationalities of the three were not immediately clear.
Last month, a Russian-American man named Alexander Fishenko pleaded guilty for his role in the scheme, which sought to ship electronics and computer chips for use in radar and surveillance systems, missile-guidance systems, and detonation triggers to Russia.
The U.S. Justice Department said Arc Electronics had portrayed itself as a maker of traffic lights, and gave false export information to the manufacturers of the electronics and disguised shipments to avoid U.S. export controls.
The most serious counts each carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
An attorney for Abdullaev was quoted by the AP as saying his client "was wrongfully convicted" and planned on appealing the conviction. Lawyers for Posobilov and Diatlova could not immediately be reached for comment.
With reporting by AP