Chinese National Charged With Violating Export Administration Regulations
Chinese national Qiang Hu, a/k/a Johnson Hu, 47, was charged in a complaint with conspiracy to violate the Export Administration Regulations and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. Hu was arrested May 22 in North Andover. The complaint alleges that Hu's employment at MKS Instruments Shanghai gave him access to MKS manufactured parts, including export-controlled pressure-measuring sensors (manometer types 622B, 623B, 626A, 626B, 627B, 722A, and 722B), which are commonly known as pressure transducers. Pressure transducers are export controlled because they are used in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium and produce weapons-grade uranium, the Justice Department said.
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It said Hu and others caused thousands of MKS pressure transducers worth millions of dollars to be exported from the U.S. and delivered to unauthorized end-users using export licenses that were fraudulently obtained from the U.S. Department of Commerce. It said they used licenses issued to legitimate MKS business customers to export the pressure transducers to China, and then caused the parts to be delivered to other end-users who were not themselves named on the export licenses or authorized to receive the parts. They also obtained export licenses in the name of a front company and then used these fraudulently obtained licenses to export the parts to China, where they were delivered to the actual end-users, the complaint said.
MKS is not a target of the government's investigation into these matters. Hu is scheduled for a detention hearing May 31. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison to be followed by up to three years of supervised release, and a $1 million fine.