The order from David Wetzky was innocuous enough. His company, Strandway LLC, was hoping to buy a piece of technology from a US manufacturer: an oscilloscope scanner typically used to test electronics.
In reality, Wetzky did not really exist. It was a pseudonym used by Boris Livshits, a Russian citizen accused of posing as a legitimate businessman so he could smuggle high tech electronics and semiconductors out of the US.
The devices were shipped in April last year to a quiet town in America’s suburbia, Merrimack in New Hampshire. From there, they were allegedly picked up by Israeli-American Alexey Brayman, who repackaged the technology, tore up the invoices and added fake export documentation before sending them to Europe, US court filings state.
