Ex U.S. Embassy Employee Charged with Theft of U.S. Refugee Program Documents

The U.S. authorities charged three foreign nationals, including former Russian employee of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, with stealing official documents related to the U.S. refugee program, the U.S. Justice Department said in a press release on Friday.

According to Russian agency TASS, the three suspects are: Russian citizen Olesya Krasilova (43), Iraqi citizen Aws Muwafaq Abduljabbar (42), who resides in Jordan, and Jordanian citizen Haitham Isa Saado Sad (42). The three were charged with “conspiracy to steal U.S. government records and to defraud the United States, theft of U.S. government records, and conspiracy to launder money, all related to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP),” according to the press release.

“The indictment also charges Sad and Krasilova with computer fraud and abuse,” the U.S. Justice Department said.

“The indictment charges that, from approximately February 2016 until at least April 2019, the three defendants, led by Abduljabbar, conspired to steal U.S. government records related to hundreds of USRAP applications,” the press service said. The U.S. Justice Department noted that Abduljabbar and Sad had been detained, while Krasilova remains “at large.”

On February 14, 2020, Olesya Krasilova, then employee of an organization subordinate to the Russian agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, was detained in Spain, where she was on a short-term business trip as part of an official delegation.

A representative of Spain’s General Council of the Judiciary told TASS that the United States sought extradition of Krasilova “to prosecute her for conspiracy with others to steal information from the database and influence the legitimate functions of the United States government in relation to admission of refugees with a maximum sentence of five years.”

The lawyers of the Russian woman managed to prove that the ongoing process of her extradition was illegal. After that Krasilova returned to Moscow.