Russian beautician arrested for smuggling night vision optics out of Texas

Telegraph:

Anna Fermanova, 24, who lives near Dallas, was apprehended after attempting to take state-of-the-art night-vision scopes and other restricted items to Russia.

The items were confiscated when she attempted to board a flight to Moscow earlier this year. She was arrested when returning to America this month.

The case is being compared to that of Anna Chapman, a suspected Russian spy who was arrested in New York and then returned to Russia under a "spy swap exchange" earlier this month. There is no evidence that the two women knew one another.

It has been reported that Miss Fermanova was arrested on July 15th for "knowingly and intentionally" attempting to export "defense articles on the United States Munitions list." The night-vision goggles and scopes cannot be exported without approval from the US State Department, as they are considered to be sophisticated military weapons.

Among the items she was caught with were a Raptor 4X Night Vision Weapons Sight, which she had bought online. A customs agent claimed that the sight's ID numbers "had been covered with black marker pens".

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There is a series of photos with the story at the link above. She is an attractive woman. I suspect the Russians would like to reverse engineer the scope she had purchased online. There has been little coverage of her case in Texas so far.