Illegal sales of night vision to Russia

General General Discussion
1

An article popped up on Yahoo today called “How Russia stole the night: Inside the illegal market for American night-vision technology.” Its an interesting tale that includes what I think is a popular supplier of night vision: ATN

Long story short, a Russian couple has been selling night vision stuff to the Russian gov for quite a while illegally. Their son started ATN, changed his name, and might be mixed up in this. ITAR violations are nasty, as they should be. If its all true, they need the book thrown at them all.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/russia-stole-night-inside-illegal-market-american-night-vision-technology-090013609.html

2

I thought ATN was Russian.

3

Friends don’t let friends buy ATN.

4

And here I always ass-u-med they were CHICOM crap considering the amount of room they take up in The Sportmans Guide / Cheaper Than Dirt catalogs.

5

I wrote them off because their specs are misleading IMO, and their advertisement pics are BS… some of the “thermals pics” are normal pics in black/white with inverted colors.

6

Does this mean my ATN Gen 1 scope is now collectible?

7

Where does atn even get tubes? I know they aren’t Harris/pinnacle or ITT.

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8

I suspect they are buying outdated/deficient Russian technology. Then they sell it back to the Russians. Genius! Profit!

Really, if the Russian .mil is forced to buy ATN consumer night vision, the threat doesn’t seem all too scary.