Posted on May 18, 2010 by Anthony Lake

Massachusetts Defendants Convicted for Shipping Electronics Equipment to China's Military

Yesterday, after a five week trial, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts found Zhen Zhou Wu, a/k/a Alex Wu; Yufeng Wei, a/k/a Annie Wei; and Chitron Electronics, Inc., a corporation based in Shenzhen, China, with an office in Walthan, Massachusetts, guilty of conspiring to violate U.S. export laws and illegally exporting electronic equipment from the United States to the Peoples' Republic of China, according to a press release by the Boston Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

From 2004 to 2007, Chitron purchased equipment used in electronic warfare; military radar, guidance and control equipment; satellite communications, including global positioning systems; and fire control and exported the equipment to China through Hong Kong. The equipment is primarily used in military phased array radar, electronic warfare, military guidance systems, and military satellite communications. The defendants sent the equipment to Chinese military entities and research institutes, including China Electronics Technology Group Corporation. The equipment was shipped without export licenses from the Department of Commerce, in violation of the U.S. arms embargo against China which has been in place since 1990. The press release notes that the equipment could make a significant contribution to weapons systems and fighting capabilities of adversaries of the U.S.

Source: chinalawandpolicy.com/page/2/

Wu and Wei were also convicted of filing false shipping documents with the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Wei was convicted of immigration fraud for using a U.S. Permanent Resident Card which she allegedly knew had been procured by making false and fraudulent statements to immigration officials in order to enter the U.S. A co-defendant, Bo Li, a/k/a Eric Lee, previously pled guilty to making false statements on shipping documents.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted on March 4, 2010 by Anthony Lake

British Multinational Defense Contractor BAE Systems Pleads Guilty to Foreign Corrupt Practices Violations and Other Offenses; Ordered to Pay $400 Million Fine

On Monday, BAE Systems PLC, a United Kingdom-based, multinational defense contractor, pled guilty in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia to charges of allegedly conspiring to defraud the United States by impairing and impeding its lawful functions, allegedly making false statements about its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) compliance program, and allegedly violating the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), according to PR Newswire. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ordered BAE Systems to pay a $400 million criminal fine. The fine is one of the largest ever imposed in a foreign corrupt practices/export control case. BAE Systems also agreed to retain an independent compliance monitor.

BAE Systems, the prime military contractor in the UK, was alleged to have represented to various U.S. government agencies from 2000 to 2002 that it would would create and implement policies and procedures to ensure its compliance with anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but failed to implement the policies and procedures. BAE Systems was alleged to have saved approximately $200 million in failing to implement the policies and procedures.

The government also alleged that BAE Systems made payments to shell corporations and third party intermediaries which were not subject to the scrutiny required by the U.S. government. BAE Systems is alleged to have retained "marketing advisors" to secure defense contracts and to have allegedly concealed its relationship with these advisors from the U.S. government and made undisclosed payments to them, encouraging them to set up offshore shell corporations to receive payments. The company is alleged to have created one company in the British Virgin Islands in order to allegedly conceal its marketing advisor relationships, the identities of the advisors and how much they were paid; to help the advisors avoid tax liability, and  to obstruct investigating authorities and circumvent laws of countries which prohibit such relationships. BAE Systems is alleged to have made more than £135 million in payments through the shell entity.

BAE Systems was also alleged to have given benefits to an official of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in order to influence sales of fighter jets and other armaments to the country without properly reviewing or verifying the benefits pursuant to U.S. law. BAE Systems is alleged to have transferred millions through a bank account in Switzerland controlled by an intermediary in relation to the deal.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted on May 21, 2008 by Anthony Lake

Overview of Georgia's Military Criminal Justice System

     Except for the United States Coast Guard, every branch of the United States military possesses personnel and bases within the State of Georgia: Fort Benning, Fort Gillem, Fort Gordon, Fort McPherson, Fort Stewart, Hunter Army Airfield, and Lawson Army Airfield for the United States Army; the Atlanta Naval Air Station and King's Bay Naval Submarine Base for the United States Navy; the Albany Marine Corps Logistics Base for the United States Marine Corps; and Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Moody Air Force Base and Robins Air Force Base for the United States Air Force. Although the vast majority of servicemen and women serve their country dutifully, honorably and without any mark whatsoever on their record, occasionally military personnel do become involved in criminal activity, and the United States armed services have a well established justice system to deal with such activity.

     Firstly, each armed services branch has its own military police force, the Military Police Corps for the Army, the Master-at-Arms for the Navy, the Provost Marshal’s Office for the Marines and the Air Force Security Forces (there also are separate United States Department of Defense police forces for each branch, which are concerned with security). Each service further has its own department for criminal investigations: the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI). The Army CID 3rd MP Group and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory are based at Fort Gillem, and Air Force OSI maintains units at all Georgia Air Force bases.

     If an investigation indicates criminal conduct by a serviceman or woman, a court martial is convened by a commanding authority at the facility where the serviceman or woman is located. Court martial proceedings are adversarial proceedings, similar to federal criminal cases, and a serviceman or woman may be represented by counsel, present evidence and confront witnesses. Courts martial are Article I, or legislative, as opposed to Article III, courts.

     There are three types of courts martial: summary court martial, for minor charges, in which a member of the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for the particular military branch acts as both prosecutor and defense counsel; special court martial, for offenses not resulting in a sentence of confinement of more than 1 year, which involves a military judge, prosecutor and a panel of at least three officers or enlisted personnel who serve as a jury; and general court martial for serious crimes carrying severe punishment, including the death penalty, with a judge, prosecutor and panel (military servicemen and women are not included within the Sixth Amendment’s right to jury trial by longstanding practice). A serviceman or woman is entitled to be represented by counsel in any court martial proceeding, and can obtain free appointed counsel, or may retain civilian counsel. The defense may further challenge the makeup of a court martial panel, and request that up to one-third of the panel be composed of enlisted personnel, as opposed to officers. Court martial proceedings are governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ); the Manual for Courts-Martial, which expands upon the UCMJ, and the Military Rules of Evidence.

     A serviceman or woman may appeal an adjudication of guilt or sentence to an intermediate military appellate court, including the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeal and the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals. Adverse decisions from these intermediate appellate courts may be further appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, and the United States Supreme Court. Subjects of courts martial proceedings have also increasingly sought relief from United States district courts.
Tags: , , , ,