A Russian facing extradition to the US over an alleged Venezuelan oil smuggling racket has fled from house arrest in Italy.
Artem Uss, 41, cut off his electronic tag and disappeared after an appeal court in Milan ruled that he should be sent to stand trial in the US, according to Italian news agency Ansa.
One of his lawyers told Bloomberg that they were “shocked” about his disappearance. They had been preparing to appeal against the extradition decision.
Uss, the son of a Russian provincial governor, was accused along with Dubai-based Yury Orekhov of setting up a scheme to export oil from Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) while disguising it as shipments of beans or rice.
He was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport in October last year and the appeal court ruled on Tuesday that he should be sent to the US to stand trial on smuggling and fraud charges.
Ansa said he disappeared from his home in the Milan area the following day. His father, Aleksandr, told reporters that he did not know his son’s whereabouts.
“Of course, as a father, I’m worried about my son’s fate,” he told the Tass news agency. “His whereabouts are unknown to me, and so are the details of what had happened.”
Orekhov was arrested in Germany and the US is also seeking his extradition.
Oligarch Oleg Deripaska
Some of the oil was allegedly supplied to Rusal, the aluminium company once controlled by sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
The smuggling network involved subterfuge, money laundering and switching off AIS tracking systems to disguise the source and sale of the cargoes, according to a 49-page indictment released by US prosecutors in October.
Using a German trading company as a front, the two men allegedly made repeated purchases of Venezuelan oil and smuggled hundreds of millions of barrels.
The US sanctioned PDVSA in 2019, making it illegal for US banks and companies to trade with the company.
A Vietnamese-owned suezmax tanker, the 159,900-dwt Melogy (built 2002), has been identified as being involved in the plot.
