Four Persons Sentenced in Connection With Efforts to Illegally Export Military Items to China
The Justice Department recently announced that the owners of Manten Electronics, Inc., a Mount Laurel, New Jersey company, have been sentenced to prison terms or home confinement today for using their business to illegally transfer sensitive national-security controlled items to state-sponsored research institutes in China. According to the Justice Department, Mr. Xu Weibo pleaded guilty to a three-count Information charging one count of conspiracy to violate the Export Administration Act and the Arms Export Control Act, and one count each of violating the Export Administration Act and the Arms Export Control Act. Ms. Xiu Ling Chen, Mr. Hao Li Chen and Ms. Kwan Chun Chan each pleaded guilty to one-count Informations charging conspiracy to violate the Export Administration Act and the Arms Export Control Act. The defendants also agreed as part of their plea agreements to forfeit $391,337, the revenue from the illegal exports.
The defendants pleaded guilty to illegally exporting items that are used in a wide variety of defense weapons systems, including radar, smart weapons, electronic warfare and communications to entities controlled by the Chinese government. Among those entities was a Chinese research institute that the United States government has identified as posing an unacceptable risk in the development of weapons of mass destruction or missiles used to deliver weapons of mass destruction. At their plea hearings, the defendants admitted that they used various techniques to conceal their export activities, such as providing false written and verbal statements that purported that the recipient of the restricted items was a U.S. corporation rather than a government entity of the PeopleÂs Republic of China and falsifying shipping documents to conceal the true contents of their shipments to China.
|posted by Douglas N. Jacobson| Permalink 
