Illegal Procurement Network Leads to Indictments for IEEPA, ECRA Violations

Five men were indicted for conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Powers Act and the Export Control Reform Act by trying to illegally export items to Pakistan, the Justice Department said in a Jan. 15 press release. The men -- Muhammad Kamran Wali of Pakistan, Muhammad Ahsan Wali and Haji Wali Muhammad Sheikh of Canada, Ashraf Khan Muhammad of Hong Kong, and Ahmed Waheed of the United Kingdom -- used a network of front companies to export the goods to Pakistan’s Advanced Engineering Research Organization (AERO) and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).

Both AERO and PAEC are on the Commerce Department’s Entity List. The men tried to hide the destinations of the exports by listing “an international procurement network of front companies” as the purchasers, the end-users and the sources of the payments for the goods, the Justice Department said. The men “caused” U.S. companies to file export documents “that falsely identified the ultimate consignees” of the shipments, the press release said. The indictment lists 38 exports involving 29 different companies around the U.S., the press release said. None of the U.S. companies was complicit in the illegal exports, the agency said.