A Romanian bank and its U.S. parent company were fined about $860,000 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and Syria, OFAC said in an enforcement notice. Romania-based First Bank SA processed nearly 100 transactions worth about $3.5 million through U.S. banks on behalf of sanctioned parties, the notice said. The bank continued to process transactions for Iranian customers after it was acquired by U.S.-based JC Flowers in 2018.

A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas returned a seven-count indictment against 101 individuals in a cellphone trafficking scheme, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas said Aug. 26 in a news release. Per the superseding indictment, the individuals stole personal electronics via armed robbery or fraud schemes in North Texas then shipped them overseas for sale. The personal electronics include cellphones, tablets, laptops and smart watches. The indictment alleges that the accused parties coordinated a series of armed robberies, as many as 23, in AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon retail cellphone stores around Dallas. The losses from the robberies is estimated at around $500,000.

A federal jury found six companies guilty of a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. through a “wire-and-customs” fraud scheme in which $1.8 billion in antidumping and countervailing duties were avoided on aluminum extrusions imported to the U.S. from China, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District 0f California said Aug. 23. Disguising the extrusions as “pallets,” the goods were shipped to the U.S. and sold to fraudulently inflate a Chinese company's revenues, the Department of Justice said. Litigation over the aluminum pallets has been going on in multiple venues (see 2011090041).

Singapore Customs arrested three men Aug. 18, seizing more than 4,700 cartons of cigarettes for which duties had not been paid, the customs agency said Aug. 23. Customs initially observed boxes suspected of having the duty-unpaid cigarettes, then inspected a Chinese national's two vehicles, finding 1,700 cartons of the illegally shipped cigarettes and arrested the driver. Singapore Customs officers also found 2,996 cartons and 40 packets of duty-unpaid cigarettes in a van driven by a Singaporean national with a Malaysian man in the passenger seat. The officers then inspected the Singaporean man's home, where an additional 64 cartons and 37 packets of cigarettes were seized, Singapore Customs said. Duties and taxes evaded totaled approximately $400,000 and $32,000 (in Singapore dollars), respectively, it said.

Victor Yao Apeletey of Ghana, pleaded guilty on Aug. 17 to conspiring to export stolen motor vehicles, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York announced. During the first two months of 2020, Apeletey conspired with others to purchase the vehicles using stolen identities, then having them driven to Canada under the false premise of eventually being shipped to Ghana. The defendant purchased two vehicles, a 2020 Ford F-450 Super Duty and a 2019 Mercedes AMG GLE 63, using the stolen identities. The conspiracy charge brings a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the release said.

Humberto Baez, a Pennsylvania-based produce importer, was sentenced to 13 years in prison Aug. 12 for conspiring to import and distribute cocaine, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said. Baez conspired with others to bring in the cocaine in shipping containers from the Dominican Republic between August 2016 and March 2018. Baez first conducted two “dry run” shipments via an importing company which contained only produce to appear as a real business. A third shipment brought into Miami in February 2018 contained around 16 kilograms of cocaine in the flaps of cardboard boxes that also housed chili peppers, the attorney's office said. The shipment was being shipped to Baez's warehouse in Pennsylvania when the container was searched and seized by law enforcement in March 2018.

Four individuals were arrested Aug. 11 for their roles in a scheme to traffic counterfeit goods with a retail value of over $130 million, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said. The group is charged with importing generic goods from China, applying brand labels to the goods, then selling the counterfeit-branded goods to retail and wholesale purchasers, in clear violation of anti-trafficking provisions, the attorney's office said. The counterfeit goods included fake UGG boots, Nike Air Jordan shoes, Timberland boots and Beats by Dr. Dre headphones. Another three defendants in the 14-count indictment remain at large.

The State Department announced penalties on eight foreign entities and their subsidies for illegal transfers under the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act, an Aug. 9 notice said. The agency said the entities transferred items subject to multilateral control lists that contribute to weapons proliferation or missile production. The State Department barred them from purchasing items controlled on the U.S. Munitions List and by the Arms Export Control Act and will suspend any current export licenses used by the entities. The agency will also bar them from receiving new export licenses for any goods subject to the Export Administration Regulations. The restrictions will remain in place for two years from the July 29 effective date.

Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, an Iranian national living in Montreal, was indicted by a grand jury July 30 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for illegally exporting laboratory equipment from the U.S. to Iran, the Department of Justice said. Kafrani co-owned Prolife Global, based in Canada, where he sought to purchase spectrometry equipment to ultimately ship to Iran, DOJ alleged. After failing to get one U.S. company to ship the equipment to Montreal, Kafrani found a second American company that sent the merchandise to Canada, DOJ said. Kafrani then sent the equipment to the United Arab Emirates, then reexported it to Iran, it said.

Dali Bagrou and his company World Mining and Oil Supply pleaded guilty on Aug. 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to violating the Export Control Reform Act, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia said in a press release. The scheme started when a Russian state-owned enterprise began working with Oleg Vladislavovich Nikitin, general director of Russia-based energy company KS Engineering, to buy a power turbine from a U.S.-based manufacturer for around $17.3 million, the release said.