For all the time that we export lawyers spend trying to inculcate into our clients the concept of export red flags, it’s heartening to see that pay off. And it certainly did payoff in the case of two Chinese citizens stopped at LAX carrying suitcases stuffed to overflowing with night vision cameras. The not-so-swift attempted exporters had used a company called Printing Plus Graphics as their front. I suppose that was better than using Panda Express as a front, but not much.

The manufacturer of the cameras, FLIR Systems, knew that a storefront print shop had little use for infrared cameras and quite properly saw the order as a red flag. They contacted the government about the attempted purchases and the rest, as they say, is history.