Four new individuals are subject to Denials of Export Privileges by the Commerce Department, three for firarms smuggling, and one for smuggling Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMIC) from the United States to China
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) imposed a $5.8 million civil penalty against a Pennsylvania manufacturer for shipments of "low-level items" to parties tied to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) hypersonics, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and military electronics programs. Formerly known as Tyco Electronics, and before that AMP Incorporated, TE Connectivity Corporation is one of the world's leading manufacturers of connectors and other electronic sensors and assemblies.
A California man was arrested on charges related to the procurement of U.S.-manufactured aircraft components, including components used on military aircraft, in violation of U.S. economic sanctions and other federal laws. According to the indictment, beginning at least in 2023, Jeffrey Chance Nader and others conspired to purchase and export – and attempted to export – from the United States to Iran four types of aircraft components, totaling nearly three dozen individual pieces. Some of these components are for use on military aircraft operated by Iran’s armed forces, including the F-4 fighter jet.
A dual Russian and German national, was extradited from the Republic of Cyprus to the U.S. after being arrested twelve months ago for his involvement in a microelectronics transshipment scheme in support of the Russian war effort. Arthur Petrov, 33, is charged with conspiring to smuggle microelectronics with military applications from U.S. distributors to Russia as part of an illicit Russian-based procurement network that supplies manufacturers for the Russian military.
A Bulgarian national accused of procuring controlled microelectronics for the Russians made his initial appearance in a federal court in San Antonio August 12 after being extradited from Greece. The indictment alleges that between at least May 2014 and May 2018 the defendants used the Bulgarian company Multi Technology Integration Group EEOD (MTIG) to receive export-controlled items from the United States and transship them to Russia without the required licenses.
A Taiwanese national was sentenced August 2nd to three years and eight months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in association with a …
Three executives of the Smartmatic voting machine company and the former Chairman of the Phillipine Commission on Elections were indicted Thursday for their roles in an bribery and money laundering scheme to retain and obtain business related to the 2016 Philippine elections.
A Tenessee man was arrested Thursday for his efforts to generate revenue for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK or North Korea) illicit weapons program, which includes weapons of mass destruction (WMD). According to court documents, Knoot participated in a scheme to obtain remote employment with American and British companies for foreign information technology (IT) workers, who were actually North Korean actors.
A suburban Chicago man has pleaded guilty to federal export-control charges for illegally shipping firearm parts to Israel. The parts included rifle barrels, gas blocks for rifles, and bolt carrier groups. Betuni put false information on the shipping labels and concealed the firearm parts in packages containing auto parts or George Foreman grills.
Illinois aviations services provider AAR appears close to resolving bribery allegations involving the sale of used Airbus A330s at inflated prices to the Nepal Airlines, the flag carrier of Nepal. A July 19 plea deal reached by Deepak Sharma, former President of International Supply Chain for AAR was usealed in the District of Columbia. Sentancing is forthcoming. On April 4, Nepal’s anti-graft body completed its five-year probe into the $209.6-million Airbus deal, the largest ever in Nepal’s aviation history. The body concluded that Nepal Airlines' procurement of two wide-body jets caused the government a loss of $13.38 million. The case has implicated 32 individuals.
A former Green Beret and his Venezuelan sidekick were arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiracy to violate export laws, smuggling goods from the United States, violating the Arms Export Control Act, and violating the Export Control Reform Act, as well as violating the National Firearms Act and unlawful possession of machine guns. The charges relate to the failed 2020 attempt to invade Venezuela by a ragtag group of irregulars seeking the overthrow of Maduro Government.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is updating its Compliance Hotline by streamlining and enhancing the query submission process.. OFAC is transitioning to a single, user-friendly online platform to receive questions from the public. Users can now submit queries—and provide all necessary details—directly through OFAC’s new OFAC Compliance Hotline page.
Thursday, August 1st, the Justice Department rolled out its corporate whisatleblower awards program, launching justice.gov/CorporateWhistleblower for the reporting of information about certain types of corporate crime. If the Justice Department brings a prosecution that results in the forfeiture of criminal proceeds, the whistleblower may be eligible to receive a portion of that forfeiture as a monetary award. The Pilot Program covers four areas of corporate crime not covered by existing whistleblower regimes: foreign corruption, foreign corrupt conduct, financial institutions and fraud against private insurers.
OFAC announced a $7,452,501 settlement with State Street Bank and Trust Company on behalf of itself and its subsidiary, Charles River Systems, Inc. State Street agreed to settle its potential civil liability for 38 apparent violations of OFAC's Ukraine-/Russia-Related sanctions. The apparent violations involved invoices that were redated or reissued by Charles River between 2016 and 2020 for certain customers who were subject to Directive 1 of Executive Order 13662, as well as certain payments outside of the applicable debt tenor (maturity range) accepted by Charles River from these customers.
A Florida man was charged with conspiring and acting as an agent of the PRC without notification to the Attorney General. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. From as early as 2012, Peng Li, 59 allegedly served as a cooperative contact working at the direction of officers of the Ministry of State Security to obtain information of interest to the PRC government.
A grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas, returned an indictment charging a fugitive North Korean national for his involvement in a conspiracy to hack and extort U.S. hospitals and other health care providers, launder the ransom proceeds, and then use these proceeds to fund additional computer intrusions into defense, technology, and government entities worldwide. Rim Jong Hyok worked for North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), a military intelligence agency, and participated in the conspiracy to target and hack computer networks of U.S. hospitals and other health care providers, encrypt their electronic files, extort a ransom payment from them, launder those payments, and use the laundered proceeds to hack targets of interest to the North Korean regime.
An Illinois woman was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for conspiring to unlawfully export to Russia defense articles – including thermal imaging riflescopes and night-vision goggles – without a license in violation of the Arms Export Control Act. To conceal her unlawful activities, when Shifrin exported the defense articles to Russia, she listed fictitious sender names and addresses on the packages containing the defense articles, falsely identified the items in the packages as non-export-controlled items such as clothing, and concealed the defense articles in other items such as toolkits and kitchen appliances.
Iranian national Saeid Haji Agha Mousaei, 53, made his initial appearance in Chicago federal court following his extradition from the United Kingdom to face charges for his role in a years-long conspiracy to evade U.S. export restrictions and transship advanced U.S. electronic testing technology to Iran using third-party countries. Mousaei and his co-defendants understood export restrictions on U.S.-origin goods to prohibited destinations like Iran and falsely represented to U.S. distributors that their purchases would remain in countries other than Iran, like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Armenia, where the defendants controlled unnamed companies. In reality, after arranging for distributors of U.S.-origin goods to export shipments to the UAE, the defendants allegedly transshipped goods from the UAE to Iran without the required license and in violation of U.S. law.
Alabama man Ray Hunt , pleaded guilty to conspiracy to export U.S.-origin goods to the Islamic Republic of Iran in violation of trade sanctions. Hunt, a naturalized US Citizen also known as Abdolrahman Hantoosh, is alleged to have conspired to export U.S.-origin parts used in the oil and gas industry, including control valves and oil tubing, through his Alabama-based company, Vega Tools LLC, to customers in Iran. The scheme transshipped the goods to Iran through Turkey and the UAE to evade U.S. sanctions.
A Russian national based in Hong Kong pleaded guilty to money laundering and smuggling charges for illicitly procuring dual-use, military-grade microelectronics for export to Russia, Members of the conspiracy procured these sensitive microelectronics by falsely representing to the U.S. distributors (who, in turn, are required to report to U.S. agencies) that the Hong Kong shell entity was sending the shipments to end users located in China, Hong Kong, and other countries outside of Russia for use in electron microscopes for medical research. In reality, the OLED micro-displays were destined for end users in Russia.