Former Freight Forwarder CEO Pleads Guilty to Illegal Exports to Entity Listed Chinese Firm
The founder and former CEO of a California-based freight forwarding company pleaded guilty on Nov. 26 to conspiring to violate export laws by sending goods to Chinese companies on the Commerce Department's Entity List, DOJ announced.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The U.S. said Richard Shih established a business relationship with Chinese freight forwarder Seajet Co., which was added to the Entity List, along with its owner, in 2018 for illegally procuring U.S-origin items and sending them to North Korea. In 2021, Hisiang Logistics Co. was added to the list as an alias for Seajet.
DOJ alleged that from 2018 to 2022, Shih's company sent more than 1,000 shipments of export-controlled items to Seajet and its "alter-ego" Hisiang, and also sent 34 wire transfers to accounts held by Shih's company. Shih knew Seajet was on the Entity List and that Hisiang was an alias for the freight forwarder because Seajet had told Shih it changed its name to Hisiang and because federal officers told Shih about the Entity List, DOJ said.
Shih pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Export Control Reform Act, which has a maximum five-year prison sentence.