Man Convicted In Philly Of Conspiracy To Export Restricted Military Weapons Scopes To Russia
By Tony Hanson
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Sentencing is scheduled for May for a Navy veteran from Brooklyn convicted this week in Philadelphia of conspiracy to export restricted high tech military weapons scopes to Russia. The dirty deal went down on Delaware avenue in 2012.
Twenty-nine-year-old Alexandre Astakhov, who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and is active reserve, met a secretly cooperating co-conspirator in the Home Depot parking lot on Columbus Blvd and purchased the night vision devices. He paid $41,000 cash and was arrested.
"With the thermal scope, what you see is the heat signature off the person or electronic devices, or sometimes vehicles will also have heat, so that is what you'll see," Prosecutor Rob Livermore said. "So if you are fighting at night, even if you are in complete darkness, you can still engage the enemy."
Livermore says this was a sophisticated operation. Others have been charged in N.Y.