Print

Mail

wiki links

US man pleads guilty over attempt to import missiles

A man has admitted that he agreed to arrange the smuggling of hundreds of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles from China into the US.

Chao Tung Wu, 54, a naturalized US citizen born in Taiwan, pleaded guilty to conspiring to import the missiles for a buyer who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

New law

The guilty plea on Wednesday represented the first conviction under a 2004 anti-terrorism law that forbids the importation of missile systems designed to destroy aircraft, the US Attorney's Office said in a statement.

The law calls for a sentence of 25 years to life in prison, but defense attorney Gerson Horn said that under the terms of a plea bargain prosecutors would recommend that Wu receive ``well below 25 years'' in exchange for his cooperation.

Wu also pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to smuggle US$2 million worth of counterfeit money, conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and the drug ecstasy, and to importing millions of counterfeit cigarettes.

Wu, who was ordered held without bond, was scheduled to be sentenced on July 31.

He and co-defendant Yi Qing Chen were named in an indictment last year following a federal undercover probe into smuggling in Southern California.

Corrupt broker

According to Wu's plea agreement, he and Chen told the undercover agent they could help purchase 200 QW-2 shoulder-fired missiles from China "with the assistance of a corrupt customs broker" for US$18.3 million.

Wu and Chen told the agent that they could also bribe a third country to pretend to order and receive shipment of the missiles, but that the missiles would ultimately be shipped to Southern California in sea-land containers.

The missiles were never delivered because Wu and Chen were arrested last August before the deal was concluded.

Chen, who pleaded not guilty to similar charges in November, is scheduled to go on trial June 27.
This story has been viewed 1536 times.