The complaint alleges that the defendant conspired with others located in both Ukraine and the United States to purchase export-controlled, military-grade equipment from sellers in the United States and to export that equipment to Ukraine without the required licenses. The devices obtained by the defendant and his co-conspirators included some of the most highly powerful and technologically sophisticated night vision rifle scopes and thermal imaging equipment available, including, among others, an Armasight Zeus-Pro 640 2-16x50 (60Hz) Thermal Imaging weapons sight, a FLIR Thermosight R-Series, Model RS64 60 mm 640x480 (30Hz) Rifle Scope, and a ATN X-Sight II 5-20x Smart Rifle Scope. In many cases, the devices purchased by the defendant and his co-conspirators retail for almost $9,000, and they are specifically marketed to military and law enforcement consumers.



https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/ukrainian-national-arrested-connection-scheme-illegally-export-rifle-scopes-and-thermal

You just wonder what gets through that they don't catch.

20 years in the slammer and $1 million fine!

Do they just get greedy?  I would think you could get away with a couple fairly easy.  I guess it's like anything else, it's never enough and you don't quit while your ahead.

I guess that's a fair assessment. Just looking at all the public forums / auctions in EU shows you loads of stuff that most probably didn't get there the proper way, but ship hundreds+ scopes and I bet this happens. Edit: not that I encourage breaking ITAR, not at all. While I would love lesser restrictions that's how it is at the moment.

I say we ship them all of the X-Sight scopes. They would give up before they got them working

LOL


Probably everyone on the ATN FB site has been investigated with both US and alien addresses.

I cannot imaging the horror of trying to go into combat with an X Sight. 

I mean, look, its OK for the money.  Its OK for shooting rabbits and rats and hogs and stuff, but combat?  Whewwwww!

all that stuff is crap and better available locally anyway.

Photonis intens and thermal cores are readily available along with Gen 3 from Germany.

ITAR is pointless now and only hurts the economy. Lets face it.. nobody wants American cars. People want economical hunting gear made to good specs. Without a war to fight selling to the commercial market is going to be important going forward.

They even made reloading supplies ITAR. I mean seriously... empty brass needs a licence...

Now imagine you don't even have an X Sight and you are facing the Russians - not at the border but many miles inside your own border. We can talk tough all we want but the Ukrainians are in a tough spot and I sympathize with them. Americans considered the soldiers at the gates of the besieged base to be idiots to face the Russians. They were called baby faces, etc. Those baby faces with fear running off of them were all heroes that stood full of fear where a lot of tough guys would have sensibly run.

This never should have been an ITAR issue. Ukraine should have been issued a waiver from the State Department. We gave Stingers to Afghanistan but we're going to sweat Ukraine getting some Armasight and ATN consumer grade stuff?

I hope Russia steps on its own dick.

Don't disagree with any of that either.  Something is better than nothing.

I agree.

I've never really wanted a quality night vision sight until now. There's just something about knowing that international law prevents people outside the county from getting one that makes me want one for myself.  Too bad I don't have the funds.

Crap is better than nothing.

And you're most certainly incorrect about our cars. The Chinese look at Buicks like we do Mercedes.

Not joking.

You don't understand how good we've got it and how far ahead of the others we are.