A Chinese woman living in Connecticut sought to buy military equipment commonly used to gauge the power of nuclear explosions and export it to her native country, a federal grand jury charged.
Qing Li, 39, first contacted undercover federal agents by e-mail in April to ask about buying sensors, according to the indictment. She was working with a co-conspirator in China who was trying to buy the devices for a state-run agency and arranged conference calls with the undercover investigators, according to the indictment.
A criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday in San Diego said Qing Li asked for as many as 30 of the US$2,500 sensors to be shipped to Hong Kong and then on to mainland China as "a favor for a friend in China."
She indicated in later messages that her friend might want as many as 100 of the devices if they worked well.
The co-conspirator, who has not been named or indicted and is not in custody, allegedly told investigators during an Oct. 2 conference call with Qing Li that the sensors were for "a special agency, a scientific research institute in China."
The credit-card-size devices, made by Endevco Corp of San Juan Capistrano, can also be used for developing missiles or artillery. It is illegal to export the sensors, which the government has classified as defense articles, without government approval.
A lawyer for Endevco said the company was cooperating with the investigation. According to the complaint, Endevco sales staff referred the woman to the undercover storefront operation after she called the company looking to buy the sensors.
Qing Li, 39, never received sensors from the undercover investigators, officials said, and it was unclear whether she ever procured weapons for export.
Her attorney in New York, Paul Goldberger, did not immediately return a call on Thursday.
"These devices are simply not for export to China or anywhere else without explicit permission from the US government," said Julie Myers, Homeland Security assistant secretary, who oversees illegal export investigations as head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"Accelerometers are a designated defense article frequently used in missiles, `smart bombs' and other major weapons systems and in the wrong hands, could prove catastrophic," she said.
The defendant is a legal resident who came to the US in 1996.
She was arrested on Sunday at New York's Kennedy Airport as she checked in for an Air China flight to Beijing, according to investigators for ICE.
A federal judge has ordered her held in New York, pending a hearing in San Diego, where the grand jury charges were filed. She faces up to five years in prison and a fine if convicted.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS