California Man Sentenced for Illegal Exports to Hong Kong

Alex Yun Cheong Yue was sentenced March 3 in federal court in Boston for illegally exporting cesium atomic clocks to Hong Kong, the Department of Justice announced March 5. The South El Monte, California, man was sentenced to time-served of one day along with three years of supervised release, one year of which must be served in home confinement, and is prohibited from engaging in any import or export business during the supervised released time. Yue was arrested and charged in 2019 and pleaded guilty in August 2020 to conspiring to procure the cesium atomic clocks and export them to Hong Kong without obtaining the required export licenses. Wai Kay Victor Zee of Hong Kong and Premium Tech Systems, Ltd. also were charged (see 2008110041). Cesium atomic clocks are used in global positioning systems, network timing protocols, encryption programs and national defense and space applications.