WASHINGTON: Foreign smugglers are trying to ship US technologies, which can be used for weapons and spy equipment, to China, Russia and other adversaries at rates that outpace shadowy and illegal exports during the Cold War, according to US officials and experts.
In one recent case, a Texas businessman was paid US$1.5 million (S$2 million) to buy special radiation-resistant circuits for space programmes in Russia and China. The businessman, Peter Zuccarelli, was working with a smuggling ring run by a Pakistani-born American citizen; court documents show Zuccarelli created fake shipping documents and mislabelled the circuits as parts for touchscreen computers. He was sentenced in January to four years in prison.
Since 2013, nearly 3,000 people have been swept up by Homeland Security Investigations alone for trying to smuggle weapons and sensitive technologies – including circuits or other products that can be used in ballistic missiles, drones or explosive devices.
In that time, according to documents from the Department of Homeland Security, federal agents also seized more than 7,000 items, including microchips and jet engine parts, set to be smuggled out. Exporting such items is tightly controlled by the US government to prevent hostile nations or terrorist organisations from turning them into weapons or devices that could harm the United States.
The scale of current efforts is unusual and “worse than anything that occurred during the Cold War”, said Mr Robert Litwak, vice-president for scholars and director of international security studies at the Wilson Centre in Washington.
