A Swedish-Russian dual national arrested last year in a spectacular helicopter raid on his Stockholm home was charged in Sweden on Monday, August 28, with spying for Moscow.
Sergey Skvortsov, 60, was formally charged with carrying out "unlawful intelligence activities" against the United States and Sweden for a decade until his arrest in November 2022, court documents showed.
Skvortsov is suspected of procuring Western technology information and products, which he passed on to Russia's military industry. He is accused of having ties to Russia's military intelligence division, the GRU.
According to the prosecution, Skvortsov had been spying on the US since January 1, 2013, until his arrest in November 2022, and on Sweden since July 1, 2014.
The prosecution accused him of gathering "information and the actual acquisition of various items that the Russian state and the defense forces could not acquire on the open market due to export rules and sanctions."
It accused him of "localizing the items requested by the Russian state and the armed forces, negotiating and carrying out the purchase and further organizing the transport of the goods while concealing the actual end user."
Sweden's "unlawful intelligence activities" charge is a notch lower than espionage. Skvortsov faces up to four years in prison if found guilty. He has denied the allegations.
Skvortsov and his wife were arrested in a dawn raid on their large home in the leafy Stockholm suburb of Nacka when two Blackhawk helicopters and an elite commando task force swooped down on their house. His wife was later released and is no longer a suspect.
The couple moved to Sweden in the 1990s and held key positions at several companies importing and exporting industrial products.