Feds brought a suspect to the US to face criminal charges. Now they are trying to deport her
A years-long FBI investigation into a Belarusian woman accused of smuggling American aviation equipment and electronics into Russia is at risk of collapsing thanks to the Trump administration’s simultaneous attempts to deport her.
Federal prosecutors spent more than a year trying to extradite Yana Leonova to the United States to face a raft of criminal charges, including fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.
But immigration officials abruptly issued an order for her detention and removal soon after she was flown into the country last month, catching prosecutors by surprise in what a federal judge called another “Kafkaesque” case tangled up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s vast mass deportation campaign.
“Indeed, it is both preposterous and offensive for the government to bring someone into the United States against their will and then turn around and seek ICE detention because that person is here ‘illegally,’” Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui wrote last week.
“The government needs to decide what its priorities are: ginning up deportation stats or prosecuting alleged criminals,” he said.
Donald Trump’s administration intends to take Leonova into custody and begin deportation proceedings if she is released from pretrial detention, an arrangement that the judge questioned why the government would expend “countless resources” to bring her into the country “when the other arm would then seek to mindlessly deport her.”
But government attorneys are asking Homeland Security to give her temporary legal authorization to stay in the country while facing criminal charges that were unsealed last year. She was extradited to the United States from France in November.
That request is still pending.
“The government cannot back door its way into a finding of flight risk because of deportation proceedings the government is initiating,” Faruqui wrote last week. “Indeed, there is an easy way to mitigate this flight risk: do not deport pending criminal prosecution.”
Leonova was arrested in September 2024 after her arrival in France, where she spent several weeks in jail and roughly one year in home detention. She has been detained inside a jail in Washington, D.C., since her extradition to the United States last month.
A federal indictment alleges that Leonova “procured and illicitly exported” aviation equipment from the United States into Russia, where the items were used on private aircraft for her employer during Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to prosecutors.
Leonova and her co-conspirators allegedly bought the components from U.S.-based distributors, then shipped the components to Russia through intermediary destinations without the knowledge or approval of the Department of Commerce.
“The FBI has made it a top priority to keep U.S. technology from making its way into our adversaries’ hands, and we ask all our private sector partners to remember the critical role they play in safeguarding our national security by reporting violations,” FBI Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the Counterintelligence Division said in a statement at the time of the indictment.
“And to anyone considering helping a hostile nation-state obtain export-controlled technology, let today’s charges serve as a warning to you: the FBI and our partners will find you, no matter where you are, and bring you to justice,” he said.
Faruqui has called Leonov a “prime candidate for release” while awaiting trial, noting that she does not have any prior criminal record and has an “exemplary record” of court-ordered conditions, including her long stay in home detention in France.
But if Leonova were moved into a court-approved home in New Jersey, which the judge has found “credible,” immigration officials have suggested detaining her within 48 hours of her release, according to The Washington Post, which first reported her case.
If that were to happen, prosecutors would not only be battling her case in federal court but seeking her release from immigration court, which operates under the Department of Justice and direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Federal prosecutors would also have little, if any, chance of getting her back to face criminal charges, if she is deported to her home country. Belarus and Russia do not have extradition agreements with the United States.
The case echoes the similarly byzantine saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who immigration authorities reluctantly agreed to return to the United States from a brutal prison in El Salvador despite several court rulings ordering his return. He was brought back only to immediately face newly introduced criminal charges, but Homeland Security is simultaneously trying to deport him before he can face trial.
Leonova’s case is also far from being the only Trump-era immigration case drawing comparisons from a judge to a surreal Franz Kafka story.
Earlier this year, a judge overseeing a case involving the removal of dozens of Venezuelan men to the Salvadoron prison similarly compared the legal battle to Kafka’s The Trial, in which protagonist Josef K. is arrested and prosecuted without knowing by whom or for what reason.
More than 60,000 people are in ICE custody in facilities across the country, a record high, as the Trump administration is on pace to deport more than 600,000 people from the country within the first year of the president’s second term in office.
Immigration arrests have exploded, fueled by high-profile operations in Democratic-led cities with large immigrant populations, swift arrests of immigrants leaving their court hearings, and a recent Supreme Court decision that has allowed federal agents to racially profile people suspected of living in the country illegally, paving the way for street-level sweeps.
The Independent has requested comment from Homeland Security.
