A Chinese businessman on Wednesday was sentenced to two years in prison for illegally exporting marine technology with uses in anti-submarine warfare from the US for the benefit of a Chinese military university.
Qin Shuren (覃樹人), who founded a company that sold oceanographic instruments, was sentenced by US District Judge Denise Casper in Boston after admitting he illegally exported devices called hydrophones that can be used to monitor sound underwater.
Prosecutors had sought seven-and-a-half years in prison for Qin, who was also fined US$20,000.
His guilty plea was conditional, allowing him to appeal a ruling by Casper not to suppress the evidence against him.
The 45-year-old marine biologist was charged in 2018 and had already served three months in jail after his arrest.
Defense lawyers said he founded LinkOcean Technologies Ltd in China in 2005 to provide oceanographic instruments to scientists, and immigrated to the US with his family in 2014 as a permanent resident.
Prosecutors said that Qin from 2015 to 2016 exported hydrophones to Northwestern Polytechnical University, a Chinese military research institute involved in underwater drone projects, by deceiving a US supplier and without obtaining export licenses.
His lawyers say Qin was unaware of the university’s intended purposes for the products, which also had civilian scientific uses.
“These are not top-secret technologies,” Qin’s lawyer, Sara Silva, said.
Qin pleaded guilty in April to 10 counts, including conspiring to commit export violations, visa fraud, money laundering and smuggling.
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