Two companies, one based in Taiwan and the other in Brunei, each must pay a fine of $83,769 and serve a five-year corporate probation term for conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions and export laws by shipping U.S.-made goods to Iran, DOJ announced. Taiwan-based DES International and Brunei-based Soltech Industry, charged in 2020 (see 2011120006), both pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. and violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and were sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
DOJ this week announced a $365,000 settlement with General Motors over claims that the car maker -- in an attempt to comply with U.S. export control laws -- discriminated against non-U.S. citizens in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The agency also released a fact sheet to help employers avoid citizenship status discrimination when seeking to comply with export control laws.
John Unsalan, the president of building materials supplier Metalhouse, was arrested and charged with violating U.S. sanctions on oligarch Sergey Kurchenko and two of Kurchenko's companies by providing them with over $150 million for steel-making materials, DOJ announced April 17. Unsalan faces 10 counts of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, one count of conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions, one count of conspiring to commit international money laundering and 10 counts of international money laundering, each of which comes with a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York charged 10 individuals linked to a "massive scheme" to defraud cargo line Polar Air Cargo Worldwide of tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Nine of the individuals were arrested April 12; one remains at large. Some of the individuals served as executives at Polar while others worked as vendors doing business with the company.
Danco Laboratories, a New York-based pharmaceutical distributor, will pay $765,000 to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act by failing to pay marking duties on its imports of Mifeprex, the active ingredient for the abortion pill mifepristone, that lacked country of origin markings, DOJ announced April 12.
Niloufar Bahadorifar, a U.S. citizen originally from Iran, was sentenced to four years in prison for conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran by providing financial services to the Iranian government and for structuring cash deposits, DOJ announced. The Irvine, California, resident was found guilty of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut ordered Estonia-based exporter By Trade OU to forfeit about $826,000 in connection with the attempted export of a dual-use export-controlled item to Russia, DOJ announced. The company, along with a Latvia-based corporation, conspired to ship a jig grinder made in Connecticut to Russia.
DOJ is seeking the forfeiture of over 1 million rounds of ammunition, thousands of proximity fuses for rocket-propelled grenades and thousands of pounds of propellant for rocket-propelled grenades that it said the U.S. Navy seized en route to militant groups in Yemen from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Filing a complaint March 31 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, DOJ said the action is part of an effort "to enforce U.S. sanctions against the IRGC and the Iranian regime" and the claims are "merely allegations."
The former head of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, pleaded not guilty on March 30 during a proceeding at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to bribing Chinese authorities, Reuters reported. The bribery charge, filed as a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, was added to Bankman-Fried's indictment this week and alleges that the former executive paid around $40 million in cryptocurrency to one or more Chinese government officials to "induce them" to unfreeze certain cryptocurrency trading accounts held by Alameda Research, one of Bankman-Fried's other companies (see 2303280037) (U.S. v. Samuel Bankman-Fried, S.D.N.Y. # 22-00673).
DOJ announced the resolution of two civil cases in a Texas district court on March 27 in which the government recovered around $53.1 million, including a promissory note worth $16 million, that played a part in a bribery scheme in Nigeria that violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The $53.1 million mark represented the "net liquidated value" of assets taken from Nigerian businessmen Kolawole Akanni Aluko and Olajide Omokore.