BIS Charges UAE Company With Illegal Telecom Exports to Syria, Iran
A United Arab Emirates company violated U.S. export controls by shipping or trying to ship more than $50,000 worth of U.S.-origin telecommunications items to Syria and Iran, the Bureau of Industry and Security said in a charging letter released last week. The company, WEBS Electronics Trading Company, and its owner, Mohammad Alhamra, also lied to a BIS agent when it said it didn’t export to Syria.
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BIS said it can impose a maximum civil penalty against WEBS and Alhamra of $330,947 per violation or twice the value of the illegal transactions -- whichever is greater. BIS may also suspend the company’s export privileges. WEBS and Alhamra have 30 days after being served notice of the charging letter to respond to the allegations. The company couldn’t be reached for comment.
“Export controls on Syria and Iran are among the most restrictive that we enforce because their governments support terrorism, commit human rights abuses, and destabilize regional security,” said Matthew Axelrod, BIS top export enforcement official. “Today’s actions demonstrate the unique authorities of BIS to identify, investigate, and seek administrative sanctions on illegal exports to Syria and Iran.”
BIS said the charging letter stemmed from an incident in 2018, when WEBS, a company that buys and reexports U.S. telecommunications equipment, tried to reexport a U.S. origin Brocade 6510 switch and transceiver from the UAE to Syria. The shipment was detained and returned to WEBS because it was controlled under Export Control Classification Number 5A002.a for Anti-Terrorism and National Security reasons and needed an export license before it could be sent to Syria.
BIS said one of its export control officers conducted a post-shipment verification with WEBS about two months later, and Alhamra “denied” selling products to Syria. BIS said it designated WEBS as an “unreliable recipient of U.S. commodities” because the company couldn’t “provide sufficient documentation” during the visit with BIS.
One month later, BIS discovered that WEBS was again trying to reexport U.S.-origin items to Syria, this time a Blade System SP transceiver. The agency said it detained the shipment, which was controlled under ECCN 5A991.b for Anti-Terrorism reasons. After it was detained, Alhamra asked the export control officer to approve the shipment and “provided an invoice confirming that the shipment was destined” for a company in Syria. When asked by the BIS officer why Alhamra had said a few months earlier that his company didn’t ship products to Syria, Alhamra “admitted” that “up to 80% of his previous business had been to Syria but stated that it had declined to approximately 5% in recent years.”
The following year, the BIS officer met with Alhamra at WEBS to conduct a post shipment verification for two exports of computer equipment classified as EAR99. BIS said Alhamra had documentation that showed some of the equipment was sold to a trading company in the UAE but couldn’t provide documentation for the remaining equipment that was sold. BIS again deemed the company “an unreliable recipient of U.S. commodities.”
BIS said an agency investigation later showed that WEBS had been illegally exporting U.S.-origin equipment “for years” to Syria. Those reexports included a $2,250 Brocade 6510 Switch in April 2018; $600 worth of HPE Blade System Transceivers in July 2018; and $38,114 worth of items, including an enterprise shock rack, riser cards, a dat tape drive, a host bus adapter and other products, between November 2017 and September 2019. WEBS also reexported $16,065 worth of wireless access points and one WS-C6509 Switch to Iran in April 2018, BIS said. The charging letter includes a table of each of the alleged illegal shipments along with the date they occurred, the items they contained, their ECCNs, their value and country of destination.