Italian prosecutors say no evidence of Russian secret service role in escape of suspect sought by US

Milan prosecutors say there is no evidence of Russian secret services involvement in the escape from Italian custody of a Russian businessman wanted by the U.S. on sanctions-busting charges

Italy US Russian Businessman (LaPresse)

There is no evidence of Russian secret services involvement in the escape from Italian custody of a Russian businessman wanted by the U.S. on sanctions-busting charges, Milan prosecutors told a news conference Wednesday.

Two suspects have been arrested, one in northern Italy and another in Croatia, and another four are being sought for helping Artyom Uss, the 40-year-old son of the governor of Russia’s vast Krasnoyarsk region in eastern Siberia, to escape house arrest near Milan last March. He had been arrested five months earlier at a Milan airport trying to board a flight to Istanbul.

Uss disappeared a day after an Italian court approved his extradition to the United States, which has offered a $7 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction on charges of smuggling U.S. technologies in violation of Western sanctions and money laundering. Uss resurfaced in Russia last April.

He faces up to 30 years in prison, Milan prosecutors said.

According to the U.S. State Department, Uss organized the transnational fraud, smuggling and money laundering in part through a Hamburg, Germany-based company. He and another unidentified suspect are accused of illegally exporting millions of dollars worth of dual-use military technologies from the United States to Russia and using the U.S. financial system to smuggle millions of barrels of oil from Venezuela, both in violation of U.S. and other sanctions.

Italian media has claimed that Russian intelligence agencies were involved in the escape, removing his electronic bracelet and driving him out of the country on a fake passport before taking a private jet to Russia.

But prosecutor Marcello Viola told reporters that there was no evidence supporting this to date.

Viola said the suspects were identified first by a license plate of one of the vehicles used in the escape, and then phone records and images. “This escape was planned extensively in the preceding days,’’ Viola said, with some suspects casing the house where Uss was staying at least five times. During two of those times, the alarm went off on the bracelet, leading prosecutors to believe they were testing the system.

In all, the bracelet alarm went off 124 times in 79 days of house arrest, many of those for technical reason but some appeared to be part of the planning phase. Each time, Italian carabinieri went to the house to check.

The United States, Interpol and the EU criminal justice agency assisted in the investigation, which Viola said remained in a “hot phase” as suspects remain at large, some in non-European countries. A father and son of Bosnian origin have been arrested, while the other suspects have been identified as Slovenian and Serbian.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has acknowledged “anomalies” in Uss’ handling, including an appeals court ruling to move him to house arrest a month after he was arrested.