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It's Only Common Sense: Embargo Violators Punished

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For the written transcript, keep reading...A good friend of mine, knowing that I'm such a strong advocate of ITAR, sent me an article that appeared in the September 23 online issue of the Stars and Stripes titled “Feds Cracking Down on Iran Embargo Violators.”

The article tells the story of a two-year investigation of employees at JunBon Enterprises Co. Ltd., a Taiwanese PCB company, charged with crimes related to “trans-shipping,” which is shipping goods to an intermediary country to disguise their ultimate destination--a country barred from receiving U.S. goods because it sponsors terrorism or is an enemy of the United States.

Kunlin Hsieh, sales manager at JunBon, was charged, along with another man in San Antonio, Texas, with helping a third man, an Iranian, side-step U.S Trade embargoes.

From the article: At Defendant’s Hsieh’s direction, defendants Indricevs and Suranna (the other defendants) acted as brokers and conduits for Foomanie (the Iranian connection not in custody) to buy items manufactured in the United States and have them unlawfully exported to Iran.

The contraband has included parts for military aircraft, batteries used in surface-to-air missile systems, underwater locator beacons, and other technology with more than one purpose…

…in 2010, Taiwanese business woman Susan Yip, then 35, was arrested by Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE) and FBI agents in San Antonio and later admitted that from October 2007 to June 2011 she helped Foomanie, the Iranian suspect, and Mehrdad Ansari of the United Arab Emirates ship sensitive military parts to Iran using other countries. Ansari and Foomanie remain fugitives. Court records said they bought or attempted to buy from companies around the world more than 105,000 parts valued at $2.6 million. Yip and her partners conducted 599 transactions with 63 U.S. and companies without notifying them that the items were being shipped to Iran.

"I had no intention of hurting anyone," a crying Yip said when she got two years in prison during sentencing in San Antonio.

…Our investigations…have uncovered a growing number of networks illegally exporting restricted  U.S.-origin technology, including munitions and materials with nuclear applications to Iran, through from companies in Asia, China, and Hong Kong, according to one Justice Department memo.

Everybody in the food chain from the people who manufacture the item to the people involved in shipping it and the financials--they all have to do their due diligence…They all have the position to see the same thing through different filters…You can’t turn a blind eye to this.

You’re darn right you can’t turn a blind eye to this. Look, we all know this kind of thing has been going on for a long time, for way too long a time, and it’s high time people are finally being punished.

When are we going to realize people and companies in other countries do not play by our rules? Hell, in some cases, companies and people in this country don’t play by our rules!

What is particularly bothersome with this story is that the PCB manufacturer JunBon does business with board shops in this country as well. These are people we work with, people who have come over here and done business with us for years.

It makes me wonder if we always know what’s going on…or, worse yet, do we even want to know what’s going on? Do we want to turn our own “blind eye?”

A friend who sells for a military board shop in the Midwest told me a story about getting a RFQ from one of his military customers. The product was mil-spec and also required ITAR certification. For some reason, the customer had included a list of the vendors quoting the job. My friend noticed two of his competitors on the list--neither of which were military or ITAR certified. He called up the buyer to tell him so. His impression was that the buyer was anything but pleased he had brought this to his attention and seemed to have more of a “busted” attitude than anything else. My friend walked away from the incident with the feeling that the buyer knew it all along, but hoped to get away with it.  Now his plan had been ruined.

This is bad stuff--not the kind of thing we should avoid doing just because it is illegal, but because it is the wrong thing to do. Something that, as Americans, we should feel obligated to do out of loyalty to our country and to one another.

It’s not good enough to just make sure you don’t break the law; it’s equally important that you turn in those you know are breaking the law by selling American military products to the enemy. It's a crime. Buying military products from companies not mil-spec qualified or ITAR certified is also a crime and not something to be overlooked. Please don’t turn a blind eye. It’s only common sense.