The Merrimack dad who used his home business as a shipping hub for an international spy ring busted for smuggling high-tech weapons and ammunition to Russia apologized for his role in the scheme.
“I am deeply sorry,” Alexey Brayman, 38, said in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., last week. “I regret the harm I caused.
Brayman was arrested in 2022 at his Merrimack home where he and his wife, Daria Brayman, supposedly operated a home-based business that sold craft goods and nightlights on Etsy. In reality, Alexey Brayman was part of the Serniya Engineering (Serniya) and Sertal LLC (Sertal) operation that was sending illegally purchased and highly sensitive, export-controlled electronic components to Russia.
Some of those components can be used in the development of nuclear and hypersonic weapons, quantum computing, and other military applications. The weapons scheme violated the embargo imposed on Russia in the weeks after its invasion of Ukraine.
Brayman pleaded guilty in 2024. His sentencing was delayed until last Friday, when he was given two years of probation and ordered to provide 50 hours of community service, pay a $10,000 fine, forfeit an additional $6,000, and cooperate with U.S. immigration authorities.
Brayman allegedly used his Etsy store craft business to conceal the shipments he was getting from other members of the smuggling operation, and the shipments he was then sending out, according to court records.
Brayman claims to be Ukrainian and holds Israeli citizenship. He was a legal resident of the United States at the time of his arrest.
Brayman’s light sentence came after co-conspirator Vadim Yermolenko, 47, was sentenced to 30 months in a federal prison on Aug. 18. He’s accused of setting up shell companies to launder money and get the products out of the country. The group sent thousands of rounds of American-made sniper ammunition, intending for it to get to the Russian military. That ammunition was stopped in Estonia before it could reach Russia.
“Through a sophisticated network of shell companies and bank accounts, Yermolenko laundered more than $12 million and purchased highly sensitive military equipment for Russia—aiding Russia’s military and intelligence agencies in violation of U.S. laws,” said IRS-CI New York Special Agent in Charge Harry Chavis. “Yermolenko’s greed and misplaced foreign allegiance created a potential threat to our national security, and law enforcement’s collaboration on this case ensures that our communities are safe from this potential vulnerability.”
Like Brayman, Yermolenko was part of the Serniya and Sertal group that controlled a vast network of shell companies and bank accounts throughout the world, including in the United States, that were used in furtherance of the scheme to conceal the involvement of the Russian government and the true Russian end users of U.S.-origin equipment, according to court records.
Known Russian spy Vadim Konoshchenok, 48, was the alleged link in the scheme to the Russian government. Konoshchenok was extradited in 2023 from Estonia to face charges for his part in the smuggling, but he was sent back to Russia last year. Konoshchenok was one of the several spies the Biden administration exchanged for Washington Post journalist Evan Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, and other Americans wrongly imprisoned by the Putin regime.
