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Chicago Woman Arrested for Selling Fraudulent Identity Documents to Illegal Aliens
A woman was arrested Wednesday, February 13, 2013, on charges she allegedly sold fraudulent identity documents to illegal aliens. These charges resulted from an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigra
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Tag Archives: Department of Defense

Iran Native Charged with Exporting U.S. Military Equipment to Singapore and Hong Kong

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Amin Ravan, a citizen of Iran, and his Iran-based company, IC Market Iran (IMI), was charged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday, November 20, 2012, with conspiracy to defraud the United States, smuggling, and violating the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) in connection with the unlawful export of 55 military antennas from the United States to Singapore and Hong Kong. The charges are the result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and its federal law enforcement partners.

According to the indictment, which was returned under seal by a grand jury in Washington Nov. 16, Ravan was based in Iran and, at various times, acted as an agent of IMI in Iran and an agent of Corezing International Pte Ltd, a company based Singapore that also maintained offices in Hong Kong and China.

On Oct. 10, 2012, Ravan was arrested by authorities in Malaysia in connection with a U.S. provisional arrest warrant. The United States is seeking to extradite him from Malaysia to stand trial in Washington. If convicted of the charges against him, Ravan faces a potential 20 years in prison for the AECA violation, 10 years in prison for the smuggling charge and five years in prison for the conspiracy charge.

According to the indictment, in late 2006 and early 2007, Ravan attempted to procure for shipment toIranexport-controlled antennas made by a company in Massachusetts, through an intermediary in Iran. The antennas sought by Ravan were cavity-backed spiral antennas suitable for airborne or shipboard direction finding systems or radar warning receiver applications, as well as biconical antennas that are suitable for airborne and shipboard environments, including in several military aircraft.

After this first attempt was unsuccessful, Ravan joined with two co-conspirators at Corezing in Singapore so that Corezing would contact the Massachusetts company and obtain the antennas on behalf of Ravan for shipment toIran. When Corezing was unable to purchase the export-controlled antennas from the Massachusetts firm, Corezing then contacted another individual in the United States who was ultimately able to obtain these items from the Massachusetts firm by slightly altering the frequency range of the antennas to avoid detection by the company’s export compliance officer.

In March 2007, Ravan and the co-conspirators at Corezing agreed on a purchase price of $86,750 for 50 cavity-backed antennas from the United States and discussed structuring payment from Ravan to his Corezing co-conspirators in a manner that would avoid transactional delays caused by the Iran embargo. Ultimately, between July and September 2007, a total of 50 cavity-backed spiral antennas and five biconical antennas were exported from the United States to Corezing in Singapore and Hong Kong.

According to the indictment, no party to these transactions – including Ravan or IMI – ever applied for or received a license from the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls to export any of these antennas from the United States to Singapore or Hong Kong.

Two of Ravan’s co-conspirators, Lim Kow Seng, aka Eric Lim, and Hia Soo Gan Benson, aka Benson Hia, principals of Corezing, have been charged in a separate indictment in the District of Columbia in connection with this particular transaction involving the export of military antennas to Singapore and Hong Kong. The two Corezing principals were arrested in Singapore last year and the United States is seeking their extradition.

This investigation was jointly conducted by HSI special agents in Boston and Los Angeles; FBI agents and analysts in Minneapolis; and Department of Commerce, Office of Export Enforcement agents and analysts in Chicago and Boston.

Substantial assistance was provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, and U.S. Department of Justice, Office of International Affairs.

The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Asuncion of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbiaand Trial Attorney Richard S. Scott of the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Former Army Translator Re-Sentenced for Immigration Fraud

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A U.S. Army contract translator was re-sentenced Wednesday, August 2, 2012, for illegally possessing national defense documents, and using a false identity to procure his U.S. citizenship and gain access to classified military materials. This is the result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), FBI and the New York City Police Department, with the assistance of the U.S. Department of Defense.

On May 19, 2008, the defendant was originally sentenced to 121 months in prison. That sentence was later reversed on appeal due to an error in the calculation of the advisory U.S. sentencing guidelines range. The case was then remanded for resentencing, and the judge in the case then imposed an above-guidelines sentence.

On Feb. 14, 2007, the defendant, whose true identity is still unknown and who goes by various names, including Abdulhakeem Nour, Abu Hakim, Noureddine Malki, Almaliki Nour, and Almalik Nour Eddin, pleaded guilty to the unauthorized possession of classified documents. On Dec. 20, 2005, the defendant pleaded guilty to the false identity charge.

In August 2003, the defendant used a false identity to apply for and gain a position as an Arabic translator for L-3 Titan Corporation, a company which provides translation services in Iraq for U.S. military personnel. He then used the same false identity to fraudulently obtain Secret and then Top Secret security clearances.

Subsequently, during assignments in Iraq, the defendant took classified documents from the U.S. Army without authorization. While assigned to an intelligence group in the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army at Al Taqqadam Air Base, he downloaded a classified electronic document and took hard copies of several other classified documents. The documents detailed the 82nd Airborne’s mission in Iraq in regard to insurgent activity, such as coordinates of insurgent locations, upon which the U.S. Army was preparing to fire in January 2004, and U.S. Army plans for protecting Sunni Iraqis traveling on their pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in late January 2004.

During a later deployment to a U.S. Army base near Najaf, Iraq, the defendant obtained a photograph of a classified battle map identifying U.S. troop routes used in August 2004 during the battle of Najaf, where the U.S. and Iraqi security forces sustained serious casualties. In September 2005, the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force recovered these classified documents during a search of the defendant’s Brooklyn apartment. One of the documents remains classified and therefore is not described here. In connection with the re-sentencing, the court found that the defendant had intentionally taken the classified materials that were later found in his possession.

The prosecution of this case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

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