Kansas avionics firm owner gets 18 months for illegal Russia exports

A federal judge sentenced the former owner of a Kansas avionics company to 18 months in prison for a scheme to ship aviation technology to Russia without the export licences US law requires.

Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky, 63, of Lawrence, Kansas, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and money laundering charges tied to the sale of controlled avionics equipment, the Justice Department said. He was formerly president of KanRus Trading Company. Prosecutors said the company kept supplying Russian customers after Washington tightened export restrictions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It hid who the shipments were really going to and routed them through intermediaries in other countries to get around the controls, according to the department.

Buyanovsky admitted that he and associates sent a repaired traffic alert and collision avoidance system to the Russian Federal Security Service in 2021, prosecutors said. Identifying markings were taken off the unit before it was sent to a US company for repair, after which it went back to Russia. Investigators also found the group used false export paperwork and moved payments through foreign bank accounts.

US Attorney Ryan A. Kriegshauser said the defendants treated the war as a chance to make money rather than as a humanitarian crisis, and ignored the laws in the process.

As part of the case, Buyanovsky gave up avionics equipment and accessories valued at more than $450,000, plus a separate $50,000 personal forfeiture judgment.

Two others were sentenced earlier. Douglas Robertson, a former vice president at KanRus, received 32 months in June, and Latvian broker Oleg Chistyakov got 28 months. The FBI and the Commerce Department's Office of Export Enforcement took part in the investigation.