Justice Department strips citizenship from smuggler, fraudster

The Justice Department this week received court orders allowing it to denaturalize two people who acquired U.S. citizenship fraudulently, it announced Thursday. One, Vladimir Volgaev, was a man originally from Ukraine who became a U.S. citizen in 2016. He illegally helped smuggle over 1,000 firearm parts out of the United States for sale in foreign markets, according to the Justice Department.

Volgaev was convicted of that crime, along with federal housing benefits fraud, in 2020, after he became a citizen. But the Justice Department argued that he committed the crimes during the mandatory five-year good behavior period before he was accepted as a citizen. It filed a lawsuit seeking to remove his citizenship in September 2025. A Florida judge sided with the department on Monday. The Justice Department did not indicate whether it intended to seek Volgaev’s deportation.

Who is the other person who lost their citizenship? A separate Florida court on Tuesday held that Mirelys Cabrera Diaz, a woman originally from Cuba, illegally procured her citizenship. She became a citizen in 2017. A court in 2019 convicted her of a Medicare fraud conspiracy, for which she was sentenced to 29 months in prison and was ordered to pay over $6 million, according to the Justice Department. The court ruled that her crime also occurred during the mandatory good behavior period and was a sufficient reason for her denaturalization.

The Justice Department was also involved in ongoing litigation in Florida to revoke a third person’s citizenship, it said Thursday. Lebanon native Alec Kassir lied about his state of residence and marital status to obtain citizenship, the department said.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on new murder charges against an illegal immigrant in New York.