U.S. authorities on Friday arrested the general director of TENAM USA Corp, Vadim Mikerin, 55, for his part in a kickback scheme that included $1,692,995 in bribes for securing non-competitive contracts for transporting uranium from Russia to the United States.
The FBI said charges were filed against Mikerin, a Russian national, and husband and wife Daren and Carol Condrey, principals of Fulton, Md. based Transport Logistics International (TLI) and Boris Rubizhevsky, the president of NEXGEN Security, who acted as a consultant to Mikerin and TENAM USA.
The FBI said Rubizhevsky, 63, is suspected to have played the part as the middleman in a scheme that awarded TLI with $33 million in lucrative contracts.
The bribes allegedly began in 2006 and continued through 2013.
TENAM USA, based in Bethesda, Md., is a subsidiary of TENEX, which is based in Moscow. TENEX, in turn, is a subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian State-owned Nuclear Corporation.
Mikerin, allegedly, defrauded TENAM USA's parent company, by ensuring the transportation contracts were awarded to TLI in a non-competitive manner. The kickbacks, the FBI said, were disguised as consulting fees.
A Rosatom spokesman quoted by the TASS News Agency on Saturday said that the company believed the case against Mikerin was politically motivated. The company claims it has not been told by U.S. authorities what financial malfeasance has been done, RT.com reported.
Techsnabexport or TENEX is one of the world's largest uranium supply companies with contracts for the next decade valued at $25 billion, engaging 30 companies from 16 countries, RT.com said.
Mikerin could be sentenced to 20 years in prison on extortion conspiracy charges, the FBI said.