Many of Russia's tycoons were so busy acquiring companies and arranging export contracts over the past ten years, that they never learned how to drive properly.
But the brokers who arrange these exports often pad shipping containers with useless junk, essentially saddling African importers with electronic garbage.
"Two of these defendants are charged with arranging its export to Iran, where it most assuredly had the potential to end up in the wrong hands," Mr. Bharara said.
Another defendant, Peter Gromacki, 48, of Middletown, N.Y., was accused of arranging for the export of more than 6,000 pounds of carbon fiber from the United States to China via Belgium, in violation of federal law, the government said.
Established in the 1930s to facilitate trade with the Soviet Union, the bank helps arrange financing for foreign buyers of United States exports, with deals paid for by the trading partners.
I received no reply, though I was able to arrange a phone interview with Lauri Hennessey, spokesperson for the Alliance for Northwest Jobs & Exports.
In 1996, Global Water Corporation, of Vancouver, arranged a bulk water-export deal with the town of Sitka, in Alaska.
Nichols arranged with the State Department for export controls to be placed on uranium oxide and negotiated for the purchase of 1200 LT of uranium ore from the Belgian Congo that was being stored in a warehouse on Staten Island and the remaining stocks of mined ore stored in the Congo.
He has been a subject of periodic British investigations, having to do mainly with exports that he arranged to Pakistan.
Many of the exports were unlicensed, arranged by arms brokers operating on the margins of legitimate commerce.
