A Chinese national was sentenced to 30 months in prison after he was caught conspiring to smuggle high tech U.S. military hardware to China, according to a Department of Justice report issued Wednesday.
Kan Chen was arrested on the Pacific island of Saipan after an eight-month long investigation conducted by members of Homeland Security.
Court documents reveal that Chen was responsible for the export, or attempted export, of over 180 controlled items, including night vision and thermal imaging equipment, that are frequently used by the U.S. military.
Chen acquired these devices via the Internet and telephone.
He then had the devices mailed to him through a reshipping service in New Castle, Del.
From there, the equipment was sent to a variety of intermediaries, who shipped the items to an address in China.
While the Office of Export Enforcement, the government body responsible for Chen’s arrest, was successful in stopping the sale of sensitive military hardware, the Justice Department report claims that, had Chen been successful, “the military technology contained inside these items could have been reversed engineered or used anywhere in the world for a variety of purposes by oppressive regimes, terrorists, or others to threaten the United States or its allies’ military advantage or to commit human rights abuses.”
