Aviaconversiya was founded in the early 1990s as a private company,[3] and it introduced its GPS jamming device at the 1997 MAKS Air Show.[4][5] In 2002 the US Department of Defense had bought $192,000 worth of equipment from the company.[6]
According to Western sources, Aviaconversiya deceivers were activated around Baghdad by the Saddam Hussein government of Iraq in order to disrupt Coalition GPS devices, namely satellite-guided munitions, during the 2003 Iraq War.[7] Russian officials dismissed the allegations, as did Aviaconversiya.[8]
In 2003 Aviaconversiya was described by SIPRI as a small company, whose leadership included ex-Soviet army commanders who grew rich on a government monopoly for processing scrap metal from Soviet military hardware.[9]