— A rare look inside a covert Russian-led operation to get strategic technology protected by European export controls into the hands of the state
As their yacht bobbed on the Mediterranean in July 2021, Marc Rocchi snapped a picture of the slightly doughy Russian man in baggy swimming trunks, dozing with his head propped against the helm. The French businessman would later say that he only knew the Russian by his first name, Maxim.
But he knew the purchases Maxim had been making for years had been essential to the survival of Ommic, a French microchip manufacturer of which Rocchi was then director-general. Desperate to keep the flow of chips moving, just a few months earlier Rocchi had flown to Greece to hand-deliver Maxim a shipment of 230 microchips — €45,000 worth. Maxim had, at one point, offered Rocchi “cash and women.” But Rocchi said he declined — he needed Maxim’s business to keep Ommic afloat.
Rocchi always knew his business partner was buying microchips on behalf of a Russian state enterprise, and that Maxim used a network of intermediaries to get them out of France and into Russia. And he also knew Maxim was working on behalf of Istok, which Rocchi described as a state research body. Istok is in fact a state-owned technology company that makes electronic warfare systems for the Russian military.
Today, Ommic has closed and Rocchi is awaiting trial in France, having been indicted in March. He denies charges of sending secrets to a foreign power that could harm the national interest, exporting dual-use goods to Russia, and submitting false documents. According to sources familiar with the investigation, Rocchi has previously argued to police that the goods and information sent by Ommic were not subject to controls, disputed that sensitive information was ever sent abroad and said that other people were responsible for any false documents. He has declined to comment to the Financial Times.
The photograph was a rare slip in what appears to be a decades-long Russian intelligence operation. The man pictured, Maxim Ermakov, has been sanctioned by the US and UK governments in the past fortnight as part of a major crackdown on the networks that Moscow’s intelligence services use to procure advanced western technology for President Vladimir Putin’s war machine. He did not respond to a request to comment. This rare account of the activities of such a network illustrates how difficult it is for western governments to tackle Russian state smuggling operations, and prevent western technology from being used by Russian industry and the military.
Specialist microchips, such as the high-performance gallium nitride and gallium arsenide-integrated circuit boards that Ommic made, are vital to Russian defence manufacturers such as Istok. According to Le Parisien, a senior French defence official told investigators that the chips were a “sensitive, strategic technology”
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— Techmeme