Last week a Portland, Oregon food additive broker learned the hard way that he should have stuck to MSG and not gotten involved in exporting silver-zinc batteries. It seems that the batteries in question are used to power the Hawk missile and were ultimately destined for Iran. So Robert Caldwell was arrested in a luxury hotel in San Antonio after he tried to buy the batteries from an undercover ICE agent on behalf of a U.K. citizen, still at large, who wanted them shipped to Iran by way of the Netherlands.

A copy of the ICE agent’s affidavit in support of the criminal complaint against Caldwell is interesting reading, not the least because of the ICE agent’s frequent and mistaken reference to the DDTC as “the ODTC.” According to the affidavit, Caldwell was attempting to buy the batteries on behalf of Christopher Tappin, a U.K. citizen and director of Brooklands Overseas Services. Caldwell contacted an undercover agent to arrange for a purchase of Eagle Pilcher Silver Zinc batteries GAP-4328. The agent then sent Caldwell a pro-forma invoice for the batteries indicating that export of the batteries without a DDTC license was prohibited. When Caldwell next spoke with the agent he expressed concern about the export restriction on the pro-forma invoice. Somehow or another (and we can only speculate here), the agent alleviated Caldwell’s concerns, since Caldwell sent to the agent a purchase order for the batteries, inaccurately describing them as “Tideland gap inert non-spillable reserve batteries.” The agent and Caldwell then met in a San Antonio hotel. During that meeting Caldwell gave the agent a check for the batteries, and, instead of the batteries, got a pair of handcuffs instead.

One can’t help but get the impression from the affidavit that Caldwell, more accustomed to dealing with Red Dye No. 6 than missile batteries, may have gotten in over his head and may well have had his well-founded anxieties about the export alleviated by the ICE undercover agent.

Nor is the USML status of the Eagle Picher batteries involved entirely clear. The affidavit claims that the batteries fall under Category IV(h) of the USML and then mistakenly asserts that this makes the batteries “significant military equipment.” Apparently the agent doesn’t know what those asterisks on the USML mean. But I’m not even certain that the batteries are appropriately placed in Category IV(h) which would require that they be specifically designed or modified for military use. If these batteries are still being sold, as they obviously are, they must have other uses than powering the discontinued Hawk missile. Of course, since Eagle-Picher lists its line of Silver Zinc batteries under its line of “defense and space power” products, I would counsel an export license even if the USML status of the batteries isn’t entirely clear.

Last week we were wondering about the origin of the name “Blue Lantern” for the pre-shipment and post-shipment verification program conducted by DDTC. Andrea Fekkes Dynes of General Dynamics, via “The Daily Bugle,” has an idea:

Last Friday’s Daily Bugle contained an article about State/DDTC’s Blue Lantern program [Daily Bugle, 26 Jan 2007, Item #10, Counsel Comment (R. Clifton Burns): “Beware My Power, Blue Lantern’s Light!”]. That article posed the question about the possible origin of the term “Blue Lantern.” One of our export compliance officials (who works in the UK) provides a possible answer: “It probably originates from the UK as, before about 1970, every police station in the UK had a blue lantern illuminated outside which signified to all the ‘strong arm of the law’.”

That seems a reasonable possibility, although I wonder whether anyone at DDTC had any familiarity with UK police stations during that period.

I’m beginning to suspect that it might actually be a reference to the comics. In an ODTC (yes, you remember the ODTC) presentation on the Blue Lantern program, there is a reference to three government wide end-use monitoring programs: Blue Lantern (ODTC), Golden Sentry (Department of Defense) and Green Lantern (Department of Commerce). The Sentry, in case you have forgotten, is a Marvel comics character whose clothing changes into the Golden Sentry suit when he undergoes the obligatory transformation from ordinary Robert Reynolds to a superhero.

The mystery thickens.