Dimitri K. Simes, who was an adviser to Donald J. Trump’s first campaign, and his wife, Anastasia Simes, are accused of violating U.S. sanctions.

The Justice Department indicted an American commentator for Russian television on Thursday as part of a broader effort by the government to crack down on Russia’s attempts to influence American politics ahead of November’s presidential election.

Dimitri K. Simes, who was an adviser to Donald J. Trump’s first presidential campaign, and his wife, Anastasia Simes, were charged with violating economic sanctions against Russia for their work for Channel One, a state-owned television network.

The indictments come as the United States has been cracking down on Russian efforts to spread content from Russian broadcasters among American audiences, often by disguising its origins. Mr. Simes, who owns a home with his wife in Virginia but currently lives in Russia, has hosted a political talk show since 2022 on the network four nights a week on the network and another on Sundays.

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  • @talEnglish
    23•10 days ago

    Ms. Simes, a jewelry designer, was also charged with money laundering

    Hmm.

    I distinctly remember reading about another woman who was operating as a jewelry designer being recently in the news.

    turns back clock two years

    https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/08/25/socialite-widow-jeweller-spy-how-a-gru-agent-charmed-her-way-into-nato-circles-in-italy/

    Socialite, Widow, Jeweller, Spy: How a GRU Agent Charmed Her Way Into NATO Circles in Italy

    The next day, 15 September 2018, a woman with a long, Latin-sounding name bought a one-way ticket from Naples, Italy, to Moscow. For around a decade, this individual had travelled the world as a cosmopolitan, Peru-born socialite with her own jewellery line. Later that evening, she landed in Moscow and is not known to have left Russia since.

    The name on her passport was Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, and as Bellingcat and its investigative partners have discovered, she was a GRU illegal whom friends from NATO offices in Naples had for years believed was a successful jewellery designer with a colourful backstory and chaotic personal life.

    It was shortly after she moved to Paris that she registered her own jewellery trademark in France under the brand Serein.

    This was likely the seeding phase of a long-term plan by the GRU to deploy their illegal spy as a self-sufficient businesswoman and socialite. In the years that followed, it provided cover as she sought to access the highest echelons of NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy.

    Maria Adela née Olga Kolobova’s jewelry website:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20160317205052/http://www.serein.it/

    Anastasia Simes’ jewelry website:

    https://anastasiasimes.com/

    :-/