
Engineer found guilty of trying to sell military chips to China - djohnston
https://www.zdnet.com/article/engineer-found-guilty-of-trying-to-sell-military-chips-to-china/
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gen3
> This defendant schemed to export to China semiconductors with military and
> civilian uses, then he lied about it to federal authorities and failed to
> report income generated by the scheme on his tax returns

Funny how it always comes back to taxes, I wonder if that is how they were
caught. I'm also curious how he was contacted by that Chinese company. Did he
just get an email one day asking for chips in exchange for money?

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seanmcdirmid
Even Al Capone went in for tax evasion. If you are going to do crime, just
report and pay taxes on the income you get from it as “other”, the IRS doesn’t
talk to the police for anything other than tax evasion.

~~~
cf141q5325
> the IRS doesn’t talk to the police for anything other than tax evasion.

Source?

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elliekelly
I don’t know whether the IRS proactively _shares_ information with law
enforcement, though I wouldn’t be surprised, but I do know with absolute
certainty that the IRS regularly works with law enforcement on many issues
that don’t necessarily relate to tax evasion. Money laundering being chief
among them.

There’s a bi-weekly process called “314(a) Information Sharing” that’s run by
the Treasury Department under the USA PATRIOT Act. It requires financial
institutions to pass all kinds of information on to the agencies in the
Department - IRS, Secret Service, Customs, ATF, Homeland Security, etc. - who
are looking into various matters. All of those agencies are under the same
umbrella and they absolutely work together.

A good friend of mine is also a forensic accountant/investigator for the US
Attorney’s Office so I know the IRS works closely with the DOJ though I’m not
familiar with how that process works in practice.

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A4ET8a8uTh0
In our recent ACAMS chapter event, the IRS person seemed very eager to be pro-
active ( and in AML world the general push is towards greater surveillance
anyway ). I don't know how common this attitude is, but I never hear anyone
really challenging it either.

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jchallis
Pretty flagrant violation of export laws. With all the good behavior
reductions, he has a decent shot of getting his sentence halved to 105 years.

~~~
JackFr
Despite the nature of his crimes, my understanding is that if you're not a
permanent resident, you're not eligible for minimum security.

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tptacek
This sounds like another whale sushi sentence.

[https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-
sentenc...](https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-
eleventy-million-years/)

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chvid
"An unnamed US firm which manufactured semiconductor chips and Monolithic
Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs)". Does anyone have a concrete idea of
what of tech we are talking about here? That you some how can get a sample of
and also 219 years in prison for if you resell it to a Chinese company?

~~~
hadlock
I do not know, but my first guess would be some sort of communications chip
with embedded (possibly custom) military grade encryption/decryption used for
voice communications in the field. The sort of thing where if you have the
code of the day, you can listen to all the foreign military's voice
communications in real time.

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sergiotapia
How widespread is industrial espionage between countries? Are people past a
certain age considered more at-risk for a quick payout? If a 64 year old can
do this, anyone can do this.

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jeremywmadison
isn't this is one of the plot points in the departed?

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djohnston
yes! wow i forgot that. blast from the past.

