California-based importer Evolutions Flooring and its owners, Mengya Lin and Jin Qian, agreed to settle claims they violated the False Claims Act by "knowingly and improperly evading customs duties" on multilayered wood flooring from China, DOJ announced. DOJ said the company and its owners will pay $8.1 million to settle the case, noting that whistleblower Urban Global will receive around $1.2 million of the proceeds.
The Department of the Treasury last week dropped sanctions against cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash following a review of the "novel legal and policy issues raised by use of financial sanctions against financial and commercial activity occurring within evolving technology and legal environments." Treasury told a Texas court it removed Tornado Cash from the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list, arguing that a case against the sanctions listing should now be briefed on whether the issue is moot (Van Loon, et al. v. Department of the Treasury, W.D. Tex. # 23-00312).
The U.S. filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on March 18 against an aircraft that was allegedly smuggled from the U.S. and operated to benefit Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his representatives in Venezuela, in violation of U.S. sanctions and export controls. The aircraft, a Dassault Falcon 900 EX plane with tail number T7-ESPRT, was seized last year in the Dominican Republic at the request of the U.S., DOJ said.
A Chinese national was sentenced on March 14 to 30 months in prison for his role in a scheme to smuggle protected turtles from the U.S. to Hong Kong, DOJ announced. Sai Keung Tin pleaded guilty last year to four counts of illegally exporting the turtles.
Serina Baker-Hill, director of CBP's Automotive and Aerospace Center of Excellence and Expertise in Detroit, has been charged in an indictment unsealed on March 12 with defrauding the Federal Emergency Management Agency, making false statements to federal agents and committing wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan announced.
A North Carolina business owner pleaded guilty last week after trying to export accelerometer technology with military uses to China without a Bureau of Industry and Security license, DOJ said. David Bohmerwald, owner of the electronics resale business Components Cooper Inc., faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison
Ray Hunt, an Alabama resident and business owner, was sentenced this week to five years in prison after pleading guilty in July to conspiring to illegally export U.S.-origin goods to Iran, DOJ announced. The agency said Hunt conspired to ship parts used in the oil and gas industry to Iran and submitted false export information to the U.S. government (see 2211300011). He worked around U.S. restrictions by using third-party transshipment companies in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, routing payments through UAE banks, and lying to shipping companies about how much the exports were worth to stop them from filing export information in the Automated Export System.
Gal Haimovich, an Israeli national and owner of a freight forwarding company, was sentenced last week to two years in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty in September as part of a scheme to illegally ship aircraft parts and avionics from U.S. manufacturers and suppliers to Russia (see 2409110018). DOJ said Haimovich -- who admitted to deceiving U.S. companies about the destination of the goods, some of which were sent to a sanctioned Russian airline Siberian Airlines (see 2412090012 -- also forfeited $2,024,435.44 to the U.S. government.
DOJ charged an Ohio-based subsidiary of a Russian aircraft parts supplier and three of its current and former employees with illegally exporting aircraft parts from the U.S. to Russia and Russian airline companies, DOJ announced.
A California customs broker pleaded guilty Feb. 7 to defrauding importers out of more than $5 million and committing over $1 million in tax evasion, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California announced. The broker, Frank Seung Noah, copped to two counts of wire fraud, for which he faces up to 20 years in prison each, and one count of tax evasion, for which he faces five years in prison.