Another Russian Beauty Arrested as Spy Suspect in USA

A 24-year-old Russian beautician is under house arrest in Plano after trying to transport three high-tech night vision scopes to Russia without a license.

Photo: Another Russian Beauty Arrested as Spy Suspect in USA

Acting on a tip, federal officials searched the luggage of Anna Fermanova at New York’s JFK International Airport on March 1 and found a Raptor night vision weapons sight and two advanced rifle sights stuffed in a pair of UGG boots.

Officials confiscated the scopes and allowed Fermanova to continue on a flight to Moscow, where she lives with her husband. The scopes are among items on the U.S. Munitions List that require a license from the Department of State before they can be exported.

Fermanova was arrested earlier this month when she returned to the United States to visit family, Dallas Morning News reports.

But Fermanova's attorney, Scott Palmer, said Fermanova's case does not involve spying. He said Fermanova bought the rifle sights online for a friend of her husband, who lives in Moscow, and that they were to be used for hunting.

"There's no terrorism, no spying, nothing that remotely touches these recent concerns," he said. "She's one woman who bought something on the Internet, put it in her luggage and this apparently violates federal law."

Palmer said Fermanova is a U.S. citizen who was born in Latvia and raised in the Dallas area. She splits her time between Dallas and Russia, where her husband has a job in the country's financial industry, he said, according to The Associated Press.