On February 5, 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced that a Kyrgyzstani man, 46-year-old Sergei Zharnovnikov, had been arrested while attending the 2025 Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show in Las Vegas to meet with U.S. gun dealers. Federal authorities say Zharnovnikov orchestrated a smuggling scheme to bypass U.S. export laws and ship firearms to a buyer in Russia.
This is not the first arrest related to the SHOT Show, which is put on by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the gun industry’s trade association. Days after Zharnovnikov’s arrest, Las Vegas police apprehended another man who allegedly stole 46 firearms from the parked vehicle of a 2025 SHOT Show attendee — echoing similar thefts that took place in 2020.
In 2019, two former SHOT Show workers were arrested for stealing 65 firearms and silencers from four different gun companies at that year’s exhibition, and in 2017, the co-owner of a tactical gear company and SHOT Show exhibitor was arrested on the show floor for allegedly selling counterfeit tactical products.
moving guns from virginia to russia
According to the warrant application, Zharnovnikov entered into a five-year contract with a gun manufacturer in Chesapeake, Virginia, in February 2020 to ship firearms to his company in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. A year later, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a license to the Virginia company authorizing over $800,000 in firearms and parts to be exported to Zharnovnikov’s company, but the license noted that the items could not be transferred or re-exported to another country.
The U.S. has also prohibited firearms exports to Russia since 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine and occupied the Crimean Peninsula.
But according to the warrant application, after Zharnovnikov’s company received a shipment of 25 semi-automatic rifles in the summer of 2022, he transferred them to another company in Kyrgyzstan co-owned by his wife that then re-exported the firearms to an arms dealer in Moscow as part of a $10 million contract. To complete the transaction, Zharnovnikov allegedly coordinated payments with his bank to transfer funds from his wife’s company to his company. Authorities say he used that money to pay the Virginia-based gun maker.
The warrant application notes that “criminals who seek to evade U.S. export control laws will often use separate companies…to obfuscate from U.S. companies and authorities the true end destination of the goods being exported.”
As part of their investigation, authorities appear to have obtained emails between the Kyrgyzstani and Russian companies, including invoices and a Russian import declaration showing the same 25 rifles with matching serial numbers.
more on firearms exports
No other details about Zharnovnikov’s alleged scheme have been made public, including other smuggling attempts. But in a letter to the court, U.S. Attorney John Durham noted that upon entering the U.S. in January, Zharnovnikov told Customs and Border Protection agents that he had traveled to at least 16 countries in the past five years, including Russia and others known for producing firearms, such as Austria, Italy, and Turkey.
In April 2024, the Department of Commerce issued a rule that placed tighter restrictions on firearms exports and made it harder for American companies to ship semi-automatic firearms to certain high-risk countries, including Kyrgyzstan. In other words, if it had been implemented earlier, the Commerce rule may have made it more difficult for Zharnovnikov to carry out his alleged scheme and supply weapons to Russia.
It was the NSSF that helped shift oversight of firearms exports from the State Department to Commerce during the first Trump administration, and a Bloomberg News investigation found that the resulting increase in firearms exports led to a surge in gun violence overseas.
When the April 2024 Commerce rule was announced, the NSSF claimed that it was “intended to hobble the firearm industry’s ability to compete in the international market under the false pretense of advancing U.S. national security.” But the allegations discussed here present a clear example of a national security threat.
In announcing Zharnovnikov’s arrest, Durham said, “Today’s indictment sends a message to the world that we will vigorously enforce statutes that control and restrict the export of items that could be detrimental to the foreign policy or national security of the United States, in this case, preventing U.S.-made firearms from getting into the wrong hands.”