1st Circuit Says CBP Had Reasonable Suspicion Chinese National Violated Export Laws

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in a Jan. 9 opinion upheld a district court ruling sentencing Chinese national Shuren Qin to two years in prison for violating federal export controls. Qin was found guilty of shipping hydrophones with anti-submarine applications to a Chinese military university on the Commerce Department's Entity List (see 2109090033). Judges David Barron, Jeffrey Howard and William Kayatta ruled the search of Qin's laptop and cellphone "constituted a border search that was supported by reasonable suspicion that Qin was engaged in the ongoing violation of export laws," and the defendant was properly convicted (United States v. Shuren Qin, 1st Cir. # 21-1832).

Qin was charged in 2018 with selling and shipping the oceanographic instruments to Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, China, between 2015 and 2016. He was accused of lying to a U.S. supplier about the end-target of the shipment and failing to obtain the proper export license for the hydrophones. Qin pleaded guilty to shipping 60 hydrophones worth around $100,000.

The government prosecution said in its sentencing memorandum that Qin knew the university was on the Entity List and he endangered U.S. national security to "further his business interests and satisfy a 'VIP' customer." Qin later lied to federal agents about the illegal exports, other dealings with another Chinese military university and other aspects of his LinkOcean Technologies business.

The defendant took to the 1st Circuit to challenge his federal convictions for conspiracy to commit export violations, visa fraud, making false statements to federal agents, money laundering and smuggling. Qin said the U.S. relied on an unconstitutional search of his belongings when his laptop and cellphone were seized during his reentry to the U.S. after traveling to China since the border agents did not have reasonable suspicion that he violated export laws. The appellate court disagreed.

Barron, the author of the opinion, said that before the CBP agents interviewed Qin at the airport, agents from various other agencies had been looking into the illegal activities. "First, the agents who had been investigating Qin's export activities had gathered evidence that reasonably led them to conclude that Qin had shown a past interest in flouting U.S. export laws while conducting his business with clients in China," the judge said. The court further said the agencies also had evidence that LinkOcean's clients included restricted entities, Qin expressed interest in shipping goods to China that required licenses, and the defendant was willing to hide the nature of his activities from authorities.

"We thus find that, given the specific facts of this case, taken all together, the agents conducting the search of Qin's devices had reasonable suspicion that Qin was exporting controlled marine instruments to China without proper licensure, in violation of U.S. export laws," the opinion said.

Addressing Qin's illegal search and seizure allegation, the court added that it concluded that "neither the length nor scope of the search at issue placed it outside the scope of a border search and thus that neither probable cause nor a warrant was required for the search to be lawful under the challenges posed and the Fourth Amendment."