HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Federal authorities arrested a Belarusian national living in South Florida over the weekend after they said he illegally arranged the shipment of a sensitive piece of scientific equipment to Russia.
U.S. Marshals took Kirill Gordei, 35, of Hallandale Beach, into custody on Sunday, Broward jail records show. He’s facing multiple charges in Boston federal court.
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Gordei, who runs a freight forwarding company called Apelsin Logistics Inc., is accused of facilitating the shipment of a mass spectrometer to a Moscow-based “producer and distributor of building blocks, novel reactive intermediates for combinatorial chemistry and discovery research in life sciences.”
According to the nonprofit Broad Institute, a mass spectrometer measures the mass-to-charge ratio of a molecule and can be used to, among other things, “determine (the) structure and chemical properties of molecules.”
According to the complaint, the Orbitrap Exploris GC 240 is “controlled for nuclear nonproliferation reasons” and requires a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security to export to Russia.
The Orbitrap Exploris GC 240 is manufactured by a Waltham, Massachusetts-based company and the item at the center of the case was purchased for more than $688,000, the complaint states.
According to the complaint, Gordei received an email on Aug. 4, 2023 from a representative at the Moscow-based company regarding the export of the mass spectrometer.
The representative emailed Gordei that the equipment was purchased from a San Diego company and paid for by a business in Uzbekistan, authorities said.
According to the complaint, the emailer told Gordei that the name of the San Diego company “cannot be reflected in the documents.”
Gordei is accused of working with the Russian company over the following weeks to forge documents in order to get the mass spectrometer to Moscow by way of Turkey.
The item arrived in Istanbul on Aug. 28, authorities said.
Gordei faces charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and smuggling goods from the United States.
He could face two decades in prison and a $1 million fine if convicted.
As of Monday, Gordei remained in the Broward Main Jail pending extradition to Boston, where he will face a federal judge.
Read the complaint: