US attorney says Bulgarian man sentenced for illegal exports to Russia

A Bulgarian national was sentenced in Austin, Texas, for his role in a scheme to export U.S.-origin microelectronics to Russia without required authorization, according to a Justice Department press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas.

The office said Milan Dimitrov, 51, was sentenced to 38 months time served for conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman presided.

According to court documents cited in the release, Dimitrov began working in August 2014 at Multi Technology Integration Group EOOD (MTIG), a Bulgarian company created to enable two Russian companies to acquire U.S.-origin radiation-hardened and high-temperature electronic circuits from an Austin-based supplier. The release said U.S. export controls imposed earlier in 2014 made it illegal to export those goods directly to Russia without a license from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.

The release said that in January 2015, MTIG received a 16mB Static Random-Access Memory (SRAM) wafer from a U.S. supplier in Austin, and about a month later MTIG entered a written contract to deliver parts to a Russian engineering company identified as OOO Sovtest Comp.

Over the next three months, Sovtest transferred more than $1 million in three payments to MTIG, the release said. After the third payment, MTIG issued Sovtest a $158,125 invoice for the sale of the Austin supplier’s parts and then shipped the parts to Sovtest in Russia, in violation of the Export Administration Regulations and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to the release.

Between May 2014 and May 2018, six wafers were shipped as part of the scheme for about $497,000, the release said. When diced, one wafer creates about 180 individual chips.

Dimitrov was charged in a four-count indictment in July 2020, arrested in 2022, extradited to the U.S. in August 2024 and pleaded guilty on Nov. 20, 2025, the release said. The office said he admitted he knew the parts were shipped from the U.S. to Bulgaria and then to Russia, and that he facilitated and benefited from the illegal activity as an MTIG employee and close associate of Sovtest’s owner, identified as co-conspirator Ilias Sabirov.

The release said Sabirov remains a fugitive, as does Dimitar Dimitrov, described as the defendant’s father and an MTIG co-founder.

The Commerce Department’s Office of Export Enforcement and the FBI investigated, with assistance from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the release said.