The Estonian-based private limited company, Yaxart, is one of 165 companies and individuals from 12 countries that were listed in a notice published by the Department of Commerce restricting their rights to export items.

“The persons who are added to the Entity List have been determined by the US Government to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States,” the document said.

Yaxart was registered in 2007 with its area of activity listed as import and wholesale of electronics, according to the Business Registry. Last year, the company had a turnover of 649,950 euros and profit of 160,595 euros.

The company's legal address is a private residence on Kalevipoja street in Tallinn's Lasnamäe district. Its only board member is 35-year-old Andrei Shevljakov, who was contacted by rus.err.ee.

Shevljakov said he hadn't heard of the company being tied to the scandal. "This is unexpected news for me,” he said, adding that he would comment on the situation after seeing the documents in question.

The Department of Commerce notice contains 119 entries from Russia along with others from Belize, Canada, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

“These persons undertook procurement and delivery activities, activities to conceal the procurement and delivery activities, activities to circumvent EAR and ITAR license requirements, and/or activities to facilitate the procurement of export-restricted items for Russian military-related and other governmental or related end-uses,” the US government document said.

US authorities announced yesterday that they had arrested eight people, and indicted three others in Russia, for taking part in a conspiracy to illegally obtain electronics from US manufacturers which could be used for defense technology and which they exported to Russian intelligence services.