Belarusian turned Florida man faces arraignment in Boston on charges he shipped a prohibited scientific instrument to Russia

A Belarusian native was arrested yesterday on charges he illegally arranged the shipping of a $688,000 mass spectrometer made by ThermoFisher Scientific of Waltham to Russia despite federal regulations aimed at cutting off Russia's supply of advanced Western technology following its invasion of Ukraine.

Kirill Gordei, a Belarusian national with permanent resident status, will be arraigned in US District Court in Boston because he used the services of a Chelsea freight forwarder to get the device shipped from a Los Angeles warehouse to Russia by way of Turkey last August.

Neither that company nor ThermoFisher were charged in connection with Gordei's alleged fraud - a waybill for the device listed it supposed final destination as Uzbekistan, rather than Russia - according to an affidavit by an agent of the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement.

The affidavit does not name either company. However, it does list the specific model name of the device. Mass spectrometers turn samples into ions and analyze their components, letting researchers determine the composition of whatever they're testing.

Godei is being held in a Broward County, FL lockup (which posts photos of everybody it holds) until he can be flown to Boston for arraignment on charges of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, export of commerce control items and aiding and abetting in smuggling goods from the United States.

He potentially faces a sentence of more than 20 years, and a fine of up to $1 million if found guilty.

According to the affidavit, Gordei, whose company has offices in Miami, New York and St. Petersburg, got e-mail on Aug. 4, 2023 from somebody at a company in Moscow that he was seeking to have the spectrometer - allegedly purchased by an Uzbek company and sitting in a San Diego warehouse - shipped to Russia by way of Turkey.

Over the next three weeks, the Russian and Gordei arranged to have the roughly 344-lb device shipped from San Diego to Istanbul for shipment to Moscow. At one point:

Individual-1 [the Russian] instructed GORDEI that United States Company-2 [the San Diego company] “cannot be reflected in the documents.” Individual-1 attached two documents in Russian: the data specification sheet for the CCL Item and information on Uzbekistan Company-1.

The Russian sent Gordei a series of revised documents, several times changing the names of the American companies alleged to have sold and shipped the device.

In one case, the Russian sent Gordei a supposed $687,889 invoice from a company in New York for the spectrometer to be used to prepare shipping documents. The letter, however, was a forgery - the affidavit states that company's export compliance coordinator swore it did not sell the item and was not storing it. The company official said the document was not hand signed in the blue ink he uses and that his last name was misspelled on the form.

Eventually, Gordei allegedly used documents showing the device's alleged sales price as just $47,889, still listing a purchase in Uzbekistan. The item left Los Angeles on Aug. 26 and arrived in Istanbul on Aug. 28, after a stop in Frankfurt. The Chelsea company billed Gordei two days later, and he paid it on Sept. 14.

Innocent, etc.