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| Companies who got rich selling illegal weapons to US adversaries |
| 2012-07-09 |
| In the wake of the Pratt & Whitney settlement (the defense giant illegally sold a bunch of helicopter engines to the Chinese) we wondered who else had been busted for outlaw arms dealing that we hadn't heard about. We went through the State Department's list -- which is long, diverse, and contains the names of both blue-chip companies and sketchy front corporations -- to find some of the biggest illegal arms.To keep it manageable we posted only the biggest within the last six years. Turns out selling weapons and classified equipment to other countries without a permit is very illegal, but extremely lucrative. Hundreds of individuals are banned from doing business with the State Department for risking the practice and getting caught, but there seems little shortage of others to pick up the slack once they're gone. ITT Corporation was fined $100 million in 2007 for exporting military-grade night vision goggles to the People's Republic of China. Marsh Aviation and Floyd Stilwell were indicted in 2010 for violating the Arms Export Control Act and a charge of conspiracy after allegedly exporting T-76 aircraft engines to the Venezuelan Air Force. Rocky Mountain Instruments pled guilty to twelve counts of willingly exporting defense articles without a license in June 2010. The company remains on probation and stay there until June 2015. They also paid a $1 million fine. Chitron Electronics Inc. illegally exported military electronics components used in radar and electronic missile systems to the Chinese military in January 2011. Boeing was hit with 86 violations after exporting military-grade gyrochips to China and other countries by including them in sold aircraft. Iran has a number of Boeing 747s because of Balli Aviation Ltd, a subsidiary of British Balli Group PLC. Platte River Associates was charged with trading with the enemy after exporting technical specialized computer software and training to Cuba to model the exploration of oil and gas resources in Cuban territorial waters. Platte River's president Jay Leonard then hacked into ZetaWare, Inc's computer system to access oil and gas software data. The Chinese subsidiary of U.S.-based PPG Industries pled guilty in federal court to a list of charges related exporting high-performance coatings to the Chashma 2 Nuclear Power Plant in Pakistan. BAE Systems, the British defense giant, had to pay a $400 million fine after pleading guilty to various charges which included conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracies to violate both the Arms Export Control Act and to make false statements about compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Atmospheric Glow Technologies pleaded guilty to charges saying that the company sold U.S. military data and records about drones to a citizen of China. Super Micro Computer Inc sold multiple motherboards to Iran in 2006. An employee of Super Micro knowingly caused 300 of Super Micro's P4SBA+ Motherboards to be exported to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), to trans-shipment to Iran. Also implicated in the events was the project's financier, Mohammad Mayssami. |
| Posted by:Pappy |