Archive for the ‘Criminal Penalties’ Category

Mar

23

Feds Indict Man For Mistakes on Discontinued Forms

Posted by at 1:00 pm on March 23, 2015
Category: AES • Criminal Penalties • SEDs

Lamp, Typewrite and Specs by John Levanen[CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/54814530@N00/8314704680/[cropped]

As most readers of this blog know, the venerable Shipper’s Export Declaration was discontinued in 2008. Instead, exporters now file the Electronic Export Information using the Automated Export System.

Apparently the news of this change has yet to make its way into the Justice Department, which recently indicted a California man, Pavel Flider, and his company, Trident International, for “false and misleading export information … in an SED” with respect to fifteen exports made between 2011 and 2013, long after said “SED” had been definitively retired.

Oh, and because those statements on the non-existent form were false, the DOJ charged him with violating the anti-smuggling statute, 18 U.S.C. § 554, which covers any export made “contrary to any law or regulation of the United States.” I’ve criticized this ridiculously overbroad statute before, noting that it turns a trucker on his way to Canada who drives 10 hours and 1 second in a day into a smuggler and a felon. Here the rule violation that turned the defendant into a smuggler was the false statement “in an SED.”

The DOJ press release contains allegations not included in the indictment, namely that “many” (but not all) of the items at issue were “controlled dual-use programmable computer chips capable of operating in austere environments making them useful in both civilian and military applications.” If that truly is the case, you have to wonder why they are just charging the defendant with false SED statements rather than a simple export violation.

Of course, I can imagine that there will be plenty of fun in the courtroom when the prosecutors, who don’t even know which forms are filed with exports, accuse the defendants of making mistakes when they filed their export documentation.

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Copyright © 2015 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
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Mar

19

Export Car to China: Go Directly to Jail

Posted by at 12:41 am on March 19, 2015
Category: China • Criminal Penalties

Porsche Panamera via http://files2.porsche.com/filestore.aspx/normal.jpg?pool=multimedia&type=image&id=rd-2014-homepage-teaser-ww-panameraturbos-kw43&lang=none&filetype=normal&version=b51309d8-552d-11e4-99aa-001a64c55f5c&s=4 [Fair Use]

Everybody knows that you can go to jail for exporting a tank to China. But did you know that you can go to jail for exporting a luxury car, classified as EAR99, to China?

Well, it appears that you can. According to an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Mao Peng, a resident of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and his wife were arrested in Los Angeles for exporting luxury vehicles to China and sent back to Wisconsin for trial. Only the terminated criminal proceedings in Los Angeles are in PACER at the moment. The transferred case in Wisconsin has not shown up yet in PACER, so details of the charges are somewhat hard to discern.

But it appears from a number of news sources, like this article in the New York Times, that federal prosecutors have been targeting individuals who purchase luxury vehicles in the United States and then export them to China for resale. Apparently, there is a substantial price differential between the price of luxury vehicles in the U.S. and China creating an attractive arbitrage opportunity for ambitious entrepreneurs. And the auto manufacturers have some how enlisted the DOJ to help them preserve their high margins in China.

At the behest of luxury car manufacturers, the U.S. Government has been seizing cars and bank accounts, but at least one federal judge has called foul. The opinion in that case gives some clue as to the prosecutors’ theories in the luxury car export cases. In that case, the Secret Service seized bank accounts alleged to contain funds derived from an auto broker’s export business. Because luxury auto dealers are prohibited by their manufacturers from selling cars for export, dealers require purchasers to sign, in the purchase documentation, a representation that the cars are for their own use and not for export. The export brokers pay straw purchasers to buy the vehicles for them. The government’s theory is that the brokers are conspiring with the straw purchasers to commit wire fraud in connection with the personal use representations by the straw purchasers. The district court held, relying on the “convergence” requirement, that the misrepresentation was at most a contractual violation rather than a criminal matter because the auto dealers to whom the misrepresentation were made were not injured by the misrepresentation; only the manufacturers were.

Peng’s case, which appears to be the first criminal prosecution for exporting cars to China, may be somewhat different because it appears that his straw purchasers were Native Americans and that sales taxes were therefore not paid on vehicles delivered to reservations on which they lived.   It also appears that the government is alleging that Peng was continuing to use the names of the straw purchasers for more purchases than they had agreed to and that this was some kind of identity theft.   But, according to the Journal-Sentinel article, it also appears that the government’s case is  primarily based on the non-export representations made by the straw purchasers to the auto dealers.

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Copyright © 2015 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Mar

10

Maryland Pizza Shop Owner Pleads to Export Charges

Posted by at 11:06 pm on March 10, 2015
Category: Arms Export • Criminal Penalties • DDTC

Da Dan Xia Weapons Cache by Colombia Prosecutor's Office [Fair Use]The owner of a Jerry’s Subs and Pizza franchise in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, pleaded guilty to shipping various rifles and rifle parts, including magazines, receivers, and sights, to Pakistan without the required license from the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. According to the DOJ press release announcing the plea deal, Kamran Malik, the defendant, shipped the goods in packages with false return addresses and false descriptions of the contents. There is no indication as to  the intended recipients of the firearms and parts in Pakistan. As part of the plea deal, the Government has agreed to argue for a reduction in the offense level from 26 to 23, which would reduce the maximum penalty from 78 to 57 months.

Something else is going on here. There is also a sealed plea agreement supplement. That normally means that the defendant will be a cooperating witness and that the sealed supplement contains a cooperation agreement.  The purpose of sealing that information is to protect the cooperating defendant. Of course, since such supplements pretty much signal that the defendant is going to cooperate with the government, that purpose is largely lost. I suspect this means that the recipients of the items in Pakistan are of more than passing interest to the United States Government.

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Copyright © 2015 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Mar

3

Might As Well Be Hung for a Sheep as a Lamb

Posted by at 9:58 pm on March 3, 2015
Category: Criminal Penalties • DDTC • Technical Data Export
Mozaffar Khazaee [Credit: Essex County Mug Shot Catalog]
ABOVE: Mozaffar Khazaee

On February 25, Mozaffar Khazaee, a former employee of various defense contractors, pleaded guilty to illegal export of ITAR-controlled technical data to Iran. The case started with an audacious shipment from Connecticut to a freight forwarder in Long Beach, California, by Khazaee of 44 boxes labelled as household goods that, in fact, contained numerous manuals and other technical documents relating to the F35 Joint Strike Fighter and military jet engines. The boxes were intended for ultimate shipment to Iran. Further investigation revealed that these documents had been taken by Khazaee from defense contractors for which he worked and that taking these documents violated the contractors’ rules requiring return of all documents at the end of employment. Khazaee was initially arrested for charges, set forth in the criminal complaint, of illegally transporting stolen property across state lines.

Khazaee’s ultimate plea was for violation of the Arms Export Control Act. The superseding information that served as the basis for the plea, however, alleged the export of only one document (out of the 44 boxes of documents) which was asserted to contain controlled technical data designated under Category XIX(g) of the United States Munitions List.

Two things stand out about this case. First, the superseding information charged, and Khazaee pleaded guilty to, export of the document and not attempted export of the document. The problem is the document was seized in Long Beach and never left the country. Section 120.17 of the ITAR defines export as “taking a defense article out of the United States.” No matter what your feelings may be about Long Beach, California, it is definitively still in the United States last time I checked. There is some evidence that the boxes may have been loaded onto the Panamanian-flagged NYK Libra. But given the definition of United States in section 120.13, it is hard to argue that the document left the United States until the NYK Libra did.

The second thing of interest were statements made by Khazaee, and cited in the superseding information, to potential employers in Iran that his job advancement in the United States had been hindered by his Iranian nationality even though he was an American citizen.

Even though working industry being very exciting, with best pay salary and high-tech events, my original nationality being Iranian (which I am very proud of), has caused me tremendous issue and hindrances towards my progress and goals. I can’t make any publication in current job (everything is very proprietary and restricted, mostly military projects), I was rejected to participate in the new advance engine program (this is beyond F135 engine, it’s called AETD), purely based on my original nationality. This is the primary … reason for my consideration to move to Iran.

Obviously one wrong does not justify another. However, discrimination against a U.S. citizen based on his national origin,if this is what occurred here, is a violation of federal law. And given the unhealthy obsession of the DoD and DDTC on national origin, at least with respect to dual and third-country nationals, it seems at least possible that this may have occurred. It may well be that the best way to encourage loyalty among American citizens is to treat them all equally without respect to where they were born.

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Copyright © 2015 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Feb

10

Because, Er, 9/11, That’s Why!

Posted by at 6:43 pm on February 10, 2015
Category: Criminal Penalties • Iran Sanctions

Fokker HQ via http://www.fokker.com/Contact_us [Fair Use]Did you know that Iran attacked us on September 11? No, neither did I, but Judge Richard Leon apparently thinks so, because 9-11 appears to be the central reason he rejected the Deferred Prosecution Agreement in the case against Fokker Services BV for exporting U.S. origin aircraft parts to Iran. Seriously.

Back in July of this year, I speculated that the DPA was headed for difficulty because there was, apparently, an argument that the Government learned about Fokker’s exports to Iran from Robert Kraaipoel, a Dutch businessman who was indicted for selling U.S. origin items to Iran. Judge Leon has apparently convinced himself now that the voluntary disclosure was indeed voluntary and not prompted by Kraaipoel’s cooperation with the Government. At least that’s how I read footnote 4 to the Order.

Instead, Leon now rejects the DPA as too lenient because of 9/11 and Iran’s heretofore unknown role in that terror attack:

Here, Fokker Services is charged with a five-year conspiracy to violate and evade United States export laws for the benefit, largely, of Iran and its military during the post-9/11 world when we were engaged in a two—front War against terror in the Middle East.

Just in case you think Judge Leon was joshing when he linked Iran and 9/11, he makes the point a second time:

[A]fter looking at the DPA in its totality, I cannot help but conclude that the DPA presented here is grossly disproportionate to the gravity of Fokker Services’ conduct in a post-9/11 world. In my judgment, it would undermine the public’s confidence in the administration of justice and promote disrespect for the law for it to see a defendant prosecuted so ancmically for engaging in such egregious conduct for such a sustained period of time and for the benefit of one of our country’s worst enemies.

So, in the end, Fokker’s voluntary disclosure, its cooperation with the government, its remedial actions mean nothing because, you know, Iran was somehow or other involved in September 11.

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Copyright © 2015 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)

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