Global Plywood and Lumber Trading LLC was sentenced to pay $200,000 in restitution to Peru's Ministry of Environment after pleading guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice said. The company admitted to importing illegally sourced timber from the Peruvian Amazon, in violation of the Lacey Act. The court also ordered the company to pay a $5,000 fine. In 2015, Global Plywood bought around 1,135 cubic meters of hardwood blanks from three suppliers in Peru, which then arrived at the Port of Houston, where it was seized by CBP (see 1606090042). In its guilty plea, Global Plywood admitted not obtaining or reviewing relevant harvest permits or Forest Travel Guides from SIGO, an open-source website run by the Peruvian government; failing to check SIGO for irregularities connected with its purchased timber; and relying on suppliers' statements without conducting due diligence, DOJ said. Global Plywood dissolved in 2017, forfeiting the illegal timber after civil action commenced.
Rashad Sargeant, resident of College Park, Georgia, and David Johnson of Belleville, Illinois, pleaded guilty on Sept. 2 to illegally exporting firearms to Barbados, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia said. The pair sent at least 30 guns to Barbados after destroying the firearms' serial numbers and packing them in false compartments in boxes, the U.S. Attorney said. According to court documents, Johnson recruited Shunquez Stephens and others to buy the guns from federally licensed dealers and make false statements to the dealers by pledging that they were being bought for themselves. Sargeant and Johnson then mailed the guns to Barbados through carriers such as UPS, FedEx and DHL, using fake identifications, the release said.
Maryland residents Wilson Nuyila Tita of Owings Mills, Eric Fru Nji of Fort Washington and Wilson Che Fonguh of Bowie were charged Aug. 27 in a federal indictment at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland with conspiracty to violate the Arms Export Control Act and the Export Reform Control Act, the Department of Justice said. The three allegedly shipped firearms and ammunition from the U.S. to Nigeria, violating export restrictions.
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 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 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.