According to www.freightwaves.com, Natalya Ivanovna Mazulina — also known as Natasha Mazulina — was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act.
Conviction and forfeiture
Mazulina, 43, of Federal Way, Washington, served as western regional manager of Delex Air Cargo LLC, a freight forwarding company headquartered in Jamaica, New York. She was arrested in December 2024 following a 12-count federal indictment returned by a grand jury in the Eastern District of New York. In October 2025, she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate U.S. export control laws before receiving her sentence on Wednesday, June 27, 2026.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office ordered Mazulina to forfeit $77,000 in criminal proceeds. The court filings state that she conspired with Russian freight forwarding companies and others from at least December 2022 through December 2024 to ship controlled industrial oil and gas equipment from the United States to Russia via intermediary countries.
Concealment tactics and false documentation
Prosecutors detailed how Mazulina orchestrated the scheme by submitting, and directing the submission of, falsified export documents to U.S. government agencies. These documents omitted Russia as the ultimate destination — a material misrepresentation designed to evade licensing requirements under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).
A June 2023 internal communication cited in court records shows Mazulina advising colleagues that clients were paying through bank accounts in third-party countries because “
Most of [her] clients [were] currently sanctioned with USA.
” This admission directly corroborated investigators’ findings that she knowingly facilitated transactions involving entities subject to U.S. sanctions.
The shipments originated from facilities operated by Delex Air Cargo LLC at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington — two major U.S. air cargo gateways with high-volume transshipment capacity.
Interagency enforcement and national security rationale
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Skurnik of the National Security and Cybercrime Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. It was investigated jointly by the FBI’s New York Field Office and the Office of Export Enforcement’s Boston Field Office, with coordination through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture.
That interagency task force was established in 2022 specifically to enforce economic countermeasures tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — including sanctions, export controls, and anti-money laundering provisions. According to United States Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr., “
The Russian oil and gas industry is the lifeblood that fuels the Russian war machine. This defendant put her own profits above the national security of the United States by conspiring to illegally export industrial oil and gas equipment to Russia.
”
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. emphasized the operational risk: “
Natalya Mazulina bolstered Russia’s military capabilities and jeopardized our country’s security by violating U.S. export regulations.
” He affirmed the FBI’s “unwavering commitment to quash threat actors who exploit American companies to support adversarial agendas of hostile nations.”
Charges and legal resolution
The original December 2024 indictment charged Mazulina with six distinct criminal counts: conspiracy to export controlled goods to Russia without a license; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to commit money laundering; exporting controlled goods to Russia without a license; filing false export documents with the U.S. government; and smuggling goods contrary to U.S. law.
She ultimately entered a guilty plea to the single count of conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act — a federal statute codified under 50 U.S.C. § 4819. That charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, though prosecutors recommended leniency based on cooperation. Her sentence reflects both the seriousness of the offense and the duration of the scheme — spanning more than two years across multiple jurisdictions and airports.
Source: FreightWaves
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
