A man originally from Ukraine has had his U.S. citizenship stripped by a Florida court for failing to disclose his role in a plot to smuggle firearms parts out of the country, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The ruling to strip the citizenship from Vladimir Volgaev was made on Tuesday, according to the DOJ.
“This case sends a clear message,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said in a statement. “The United States provided Volgaev with safety, housing, and citizenship, and he returned those gains with malice, including by defrauding one of the federal agencies that provided him benefits.”
According to the Department of Justice, starting in 2011, Volgaev “engaged in the clandestine purchase, packaging and smuggling of firearm components to individuals in Ukraine and Italy.”
In addition, Volgaev engaged in federal housing benefits fraud by underreporting his assets and income on applications for federal housing benefits starting in 2013.
He was convicted by a federal court of Smuggling Goods from the United States and Theft of Government Money or Property in 2020, which was after the DOJ said he became a U.S. citizen on Jan. 11, 2016.
The DOJ then filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Sept. 30 seeking Volgaev’s denaturalization based on his crimes and for failing to disclose them during the naturalization process.
That ruling to strip the citizenship from Volgaev was made on Tuesday when the court agreed that he committed unlawful acts during the period prior to him gaining citizenship, “in which he was required to show good moral character, thus making him ineligible for naturalization,” the DOJ said.
The court also ruled that Volgaev provided false testimony regarding his criminal background and obtained U.S. citizenship by “willfully misrepresenting these facts,” the DOJ continued.
“We will not reward this kind of behavior by allowing such an individual to retain US. citizenship that should not have been granted in the first place,” Shumate said.
