An Italian court has ruled that the son of a Russian governor can be extradited to the US to face charges over a Venezuelan oil smuggling operation.

Artem Uss, 41, is accused along with Dubai-based Yury Orekhov of setting up a scheme to export oil from Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) while disguising it as shipments of beans or rice.

Uss — whose father Aleksandr is the governor of Krasnoyarsk province — was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport in October last year at the request of US prosecutors.

Milan’s appeal court ruled on Tuesday that he should be sent to the US to stand trial on smuggling and fraud charges but not on other charges related to shipping military technology from the US to Russia.

The decision can be appealed and Uss remains under house arrest, according to Italian daily La Repubblica. Orekhov was arrested in Germany and the US is also seeking his extradition.

Some of the oil was allegedly supplied to Rusal, the aluminium company once controlled by sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Following the announcement of the charges in October, a Rusal spokesperson said the company did not buy Venezuelan oil or any other sanctioned products and has been “operating in full compliance with international sanctions law”.

The smuggling network involved subterfuge, money laundering and switching off AIS tracking systems to disguise the source and sale of the cargoes, according to a 49-page indictment released by US prosecutors in October.

A Vietnamese-owned suezmax tanker, the 159,900-dwt Melogy (built 2002), has been identified as being involved in the plot.

Orekhov is said to have discussed with co-conspirators a plan to switch off the GPS to hide the fact that a tanker stopped at a port in Venezuela.

The two men were said to have used cryptocurrency and a pliant bank in the United Arab Emirates to evade financial sanctions.

The US sanctioned PDVSA in 2019, making it illegal for US banks and companies to trade with the company.

Using a German trading company as a front, the two men allegedly made repeated purchases of Venezuelan oil and smuggled hundreds of millions of barrels.

The men were said to have used the code word “Disneyland” to refer to Venezuela in their communications.