Story highlights Alexander Fishenko pleads guilty to illegal exporting, money laundering and acting as an agent of the Russian government 
 
 Fishenko's company shipped about $50 million worth of microelectronics to Russia 
 
 Clients included Russian military, government and intelligence agencies 
 
 (CNN) The Russian military was willing to pay well for cutting-edge microelectronics. Alexander Fishenko was willing to sell it. But it proved a costly deal for him in the end. 
 
 Fishenko, a dual citizen of the United States and Russia, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court to host of charges -- including acting as an agent of the Russian government within the United States without prior notification, according to court documents. 
 
 "Fishenko lined his pockets at the expense of our national security," wrote Kelly T. Currie, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a news release. 
 
 "This prosecution highlights the importance of vigorously enforcing United States export control laws." 
 
 Fishenko, 49, "led a conspiracy to obtain advanced, technologically cutting-edge microelectronics from manufacturers and suppliers located within the United States and to export those high-tech goods to Russia," the news release said. 
 
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 NEW YORK (AP) — A Texas man admitted Wednesday in federal court in New York that he acted as a secret agent for the Russian government and headed an operation over about 10 years to export military technology to that country. 
 
 Alexander Fishenko, a naturalized U.S. citizen and owner of Houston-based Arc Electronics Inc., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to numerous crimes, including money laundering, obstruction of justice and acting as an agent of the Russian government in the United States. A sentencing date hasn't been set. 
 
 Prosecutors say he headed a scheme to purposely evade strict export controls for cutting-edge microelectronics commonly used in missile guidance systems, detonation triggers and radar systems. The 49-year-old Fishenko, among 11 people charged in the case, "lined his pockets at the expense of our national security," Acting U.S. Attorney Kelly Currie said in a statement. 
 
 Defense attorney Richard Levitt did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. 
 
 Fishenko was arrested in October 2012 amid a modernization campaign by Russian military officials hungry for the restricted American-made components, investigators say. 
 
 During the probe, prosecutors say, investigators learned that Fishenko's company had shipped about $50 million worth of microelectronics and other technologies to Russia between 2002 and 2012. They also uncovered a letter that was sent by a lab for Russia's Federal Security Service that said it obtained the microchips from Fishenko's company, prosecutors say. 
 
 Four others have pleaded guilty to charges in the case; the remaining six have pleaded not guilty and three of them are expected to go on trial in September, authorities say. 

 The former owner and chief executive of a Houston electronics firm on Wednesday admitted to being a Russian agent and illegally exporting sensitive microelectronics to Russia from Texas, two weeks before he was set to go on trial in Brooklyn, N.Y., federal court. 
 
 Alexander Fishenko, 49 years old, was accused of laundering money, violating export laws and obstructing justice. He was also charged with acting as an unregistered agent...
– The ex-CEO and owner of a now-defunct Houston microelectronics company could be sentenced to more than 100 years in prison after pleading guilty yesterday to being an unregistered Russian agent, accused of illegally exporting high-tech product worth millions to his home country over a 10-year period, the Wall Street Journal reports. Alexander Fishenko, 49, a native of the former Soviet Union who was naturalized in the US in 2003, was hit with 19 charges, including money laundering, circumventing export laws, and what the Journal says is the little-used charge of acting as an unregistered agent of the Russian government via his Arc Electronics firm. "Fishenko lined his pockets at the expense of our national security," the acting US attorney for the Eastern District of New York said, per CNN. Fishenko, arrested in 2012, is one of 11 charged in the case, per the AP. The technologies Fishenko sent overseas—including microprocessors and analog-to-digital converters—are subject to strict export regulations because they have the potential to be used in surveillance, radar, and missile guidance systems, CNN notes. The scheme, which the Journal says kicked into full gear in 2008, flouted export laws by designating Arc as a traffic-light manufacturer (even though it produced no goods, instead obtaining them through US suppliers), using convoluted shipping routes, and accepting payments through shell companies. Arc allegedly sent more than $50 million in product to Russia from 2002 to 2012 without an export license, prosecutors say. Fishenko, who will hear his fate in January, is likely to receive a sentence of between 12-1/2 and 16 years rather than the century-plus maximum, per the Journal. (The FBI arrested a Russian spy this year posing as a Manhattan banker.)