On February 10, 2012, a Singapore court ruled that 4 people may be extradited to the United States to face charges for conspiracy to illegally export US electronic components from the United States via Singapore to Iran. This is a break from the historical trend—especially if your history goes back to 1984 like mine does. Historically, countries have not been eager to extradite their citizens to the United States to face charges related to violating US reexport controls. US reexport controls are normally seen as applying to activities outside of the legal jurisdiction of the United States and countries often do not want to accept or recognize that the laws of the United States may apply to activities conducted within their own national borders. Even when countries share US export control concerns and policies and cooperate with US authorities on export controls, there have not been frequent cases where countries extradite their nationals to face charges in the United States.
The willingness of the courts of Singapore to extradite is a significant development—most particularly for people and companies in Singapore who have violated or may soon violate US reexport controls. Parties outside of the US fear the prospect of extradition to the United States because the US Government has a long track record of applying the most severe penalties for violations of export/reexport controls of any country.
(Note: Fortunately, US laws do not give the US Government the authority to impose the death penalty—the Government of Malaysia has that option in its export controls. It sure would be sad to see somebody get fried for incorrect submissions of Electronic Export Information.)
This extradition and several others recently could indicate a new trend. If you are outside of the United States, maybe you are starting to panic. Maybe you just googled “living conditions in US Federal Penitentiary” because you know you have not had all of your ITAR Non-Disclosure Agreements signed for your dual/third country national employees involved in Technical Assistance Agreements.
Maybe you are wondering if this could happen to you. Well, the good news is that this probably would not happen to somebody who made some compliance mistakes. (Note the use of the word “probably.”) The US Government likely will pursue extradition only for the really bad guys who intentionally commit violations of a criminal nature. (At least for now.)
The people involved in this case did not make a bunch of ITAR or EAR mistakes. The US Government’s indictment says these people conspired to move 6,000 radio frequency modules from the United States via Singapore to Iran for incorporation into improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that ended up in Iraq and were used against US and coalition forces. US Government officials have indicated that, in addition to US interests to find and punish people engaged in violating US export and reexport controls, this case represents a larger US objective to learn more about Iranian ties to groups fighting against the coalition forces in Iraq.
The four people to be extradited are Lisingm Yong Nam, Wong Yuh Lan, Lim Kow Seng, and Hia Soo Gan Benson. An Iranian national involved in this is still at large.
Interestingly (to me), the investigation of this case was born when coalition forces found radio devices manufactured by a company in Minnesota in IEDs in Iraq in 2008 and 2009. The radio devices are fairly mundane modules that have application in wireless local area networks for connecting computers and printers in offices. It seems to be a perfect example of how lethal IEDs may be built using fairly innocuous and widely available components. In this case, the Singaporeans told the US company that the 6,000 devices were intended for end-use in Singapore in telecommunications applications.
What I do not know in this case is if the US Government, after finding the devices in IEDs, went to the US supplier and asked the supplier to cooperate to get these guys, either by participating in a sting or by merely working with US officials when the order came in. In seems that the indictment says these people conspired to move the items to Iran—I infer from this that the items never got out of the United States or Singapore, and actually ended up in Iran.
Another interesting point here is that historically, 1) Singapore is a major transshipment point for a wide range of trade; 2) the US Government has complained that Singapore needs to improve the effectiveness of its export controls to prevent illegal transshipments. In many respects, implementing effective export controls for transshipments may be more difficult than implementing export controls in a country in which most exports are made by manufacturers.
In any event, US export control officials are no doubt happy with the developments in this case for many reasons. Here is the press release from the US Embassy in Singapore:
The United States welcomes the ruling by a Singapore court today in favor of the extradition of four Singaporeans who have been charged in the United States with violations of U.S. laws relating to fraud involving the unlawful export from the United States of military antennas and radio frequency modules. We appreciate the close cooperation extended by law enforcement authorities of Singapore and the Singapore’s Attorney General’s Chamber in this matter.
Upon learning of this ruling, U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, David Adelman, said, “This ruling reflects the strong spirit of cooperation between the United States and Singapore in combating transnational crime, including the illicit trade in arms and equipment that can pose significant threats to the United States and the international community. Once more we offer our appreciation to the Government of Singapore for their support with this case, and we look forward to our continuing close coordination on this case and on other important law enforcement issues.”
