On Aug. 24, a federal court in the Eastern District of New York sentenced Manfred Gruber, a 61-year-old Italian citizen and former commercial director of an Italian arms company, to 18 months in prison for conspiracy to violate U.S. export laws. Gruber pleaded guilty to the charge on March 30.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Gruber organized the illegal export of more than $540,000 worth of U.S.-made ammunition produced by a Nebraska company and another supplier in Tennessee, routing it through JFK International Airport in New York. The shipments were declared for export to Italy, where the ammunition was required to remain as per official documents. Instead, prosecutors said, the cargo was routed to Russia via Kyrgyzstan.
The case also involved Sergei Zharnovnikov, the owner of a Kyrgyz arms distributor, who previously pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 39 months in prison. A key piece of evidence consisted of correspondence found on Zharnovnikov’s phone in which the men discussed breaking up shipments of 100,000 rounds into smaller orders in order to avoid attracting the attention of customs officials.
Joseph Nocella, Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Gruber had been “held accountable for his scheme to send military‑grade ammunition to Kyrgyzstan before reexporting the ammunition to Russia to support its war effort.”
Gruber had served as commercial director of Bignami S.p.A., which bought ammunition for sniper rifles from Nebraska-based Hornady Manufacturing under a U.S. export license, then rerouted the shipments to Russia through Kyrgyzstan, bypassing permit requirements that the ammunition remain in Italy. The Insider previously identified Gruber’s business partners.
From 2022 to 2024, Russian companies including Arsenal, Artemida, Ve-Kasa, Promtekhnologiya, and Tetis received Hornady ammunition. In 2023, Politico Europe found evidence that Hornady ammunition had been used by snipers from the Wagner Group, the Russian state-funded private military company co-founded by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Insider later found that the company’s ammunition was being used by snipers from the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade of Russia’s Pacific Fleet.
Gruber’s case is not an isolated incident. In August 2025, U.S. authorities seized more than $250,000 and dozens of weapons components and accessories after arresting Maxim Larin, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen from Plantation, Florida who owned several small American companies selling firearms parts. On Aug. 25, 2026, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York accepted Larin’s guilty plea on charges of conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and the attempted violation of the Arms Export Control Act.
According to prosecutors, Larin and an accomplice in Russia organized shipments of weapons components to Kazakhstan, including trigger mechanisms for semiautomatic firearms, charging handles, and laser rangefinders of the sort used by snipers and artillery spotters.
The investigative bureau Tri Trace Investigations found that from 2009 to 2014 Larin had owned the Russian gun store Shooter’s Shop. In 2012, before leaving the Russian business, he also opened a gun store in the United States. Larin’s former Russian store continues to operate under the iShooter brand. The store’s website has an “international shipping” section listing Express Mail Shipping as its logistics partner. The store’s current owner, Albert Goncharov, is also listed as an employee of Larin’s U.S. company.
