Nelson S. Galgoul, the Brazilian distributor for software company Engineering Dynamics, who sold the company’s software to customers in Iran was sentenced to 13 months in jail, a fine of $100,000 and a forfeiture of $109,291 for violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Iranian Transaction Regulations. We’ve previously posted on this case here, here and here.

Two things are of particular interest about this sentence. First, how did Mr. Galgoul, a Brazilian distributor, wind up in U.S. jail for violation of the U.S. embargo against Iran. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (”ICE”) press release suggested that Mr. Galgoul was an American living in Rio, so that serves as a pretty solid basis for criminal jurisdiction. Certainly its a much better basis than the oft-asserted basis that the exported product was a U.S.-origin item.

But even if the U.S. courts had jurisdiction over Mr. Galgoul, they have to get their hands on him. The extradition treaty between Brazil doesn’t provide for extradition in the case of violation of U.S. export laws. Furthermore under the dual criminality principal embodies in Article III, even if it did, extradition wouldn’t be possible unless exports to Iran were a violation of Brazilian law, which they are not. Mr. Galgoul was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which could only occur on U.S. soil, so obviously he came to the U.S. voluntarily, although the possibility can’t be dismissed that ICE and the FBI said that they just wanted to “talk” to him. I can imagine that he sure wishes he stayed home now.

Second, the DOJ apparently aware that 13 months might seem harsh for selling software to Iran, larded its press release with a whopper:

According to court documents, Galgoul is the director of SUPORTE, a Brazilian consulting engineering firm which acted as an agent for Engineering Dynamics, Inc. (EDI), a Kenner, Louisiana engineering company that designed, produced, marketed, and supported Structural Analytical Computer Software (SACS), an engineering software program intended to assist in the design of offshore oil and gas structures. Due to the product’s sophistication and its potential use, SACS is a controlled product under various United States laws and regulations.

The cite to “various” laws should be the first indication that something is amiss. Computer assisted design (”CAD”) software for offshore oil and gas rigs isn’t controlled under any laws due to its “sophistication and its potential use,” much less “various” laws. The Commerce Control List covers CAD software for the design of semiconductors under ECCN 3D003. Software for the design of nuclear power plants is probably covered under ECCN 0D001. But the CAD software here seems to be EAR99 and only controlled for destinations such as Iran because it is a U.S.-origin product.

This recently unsealed criminal complaint against a Florida man shows that the FBI agents and the federal prosecutors haven’t a clue as to the correct reading of the definition of a “broker” in Part 129 of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (the “ITAR”). In fact, it appears that the prosecutors and investigators have charged the defendant as an unlicensed broker merely because he had begun to negotiate for the export of a shipment of ammunition before getting the export license. If that’s a criminal offense, there are certainly lots of people who better get their affairs in order and contact a criminal defense attorney.

The defendant, Lance Brooks, had been awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to the unauthorized export of defense services arising out of a trip he made to the UAE to train customers in the use of a grenade launcher. While Brooks was awaiting sentencing, the FBI obtained a warrant to search a DHL package to Brooks from the Firearms Coastal Security Branch in Jamaica. Inside the package was an End Use Certificate (DSP-83) from Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security pertaining to 270,000 rounds of jacketed soft point ammunition, most of it .38 caliber.

The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force contacted the Jamaican government to obtain further details about the transaction. According to the Jamaican government, Brooks had bid in response to a government proposal to purchase the ammunition, had won that bid, had faxed an invoice for the ammunition to the government, provided banking information for payment for the ammunition, and requested and received an End User Certificate (DSP-83) from the Jamaican government for the ammunition. The FBI inquired with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (”DDTC”) to determine if Brooks had a license to export the ammunition. When it learned that Brooks had not yet applied for the license, it charged him with engaging in unlicensed brokering activities without first having registered as a broker with DDTC.

Significantly there is no evidence alleged in the complaint that Brooks had attempted to export the ammunition without a license or that he had no intention of applying for the license. Indeed, his request that the Jamaican Government execute and send to him the End User Certificate (DSP-83) — a document that had to be obtained before a license could be granted — suggested that Brooks had every intention of obtaining a license prior to export. Lacking any evidence of an attempted export or a conspiracy to export, it would appear that the FBI and prosecutors cooked up the brokering charge.

The definition of “broker” in section 129.2 of the ITAR doesn’t cover Brooks’s activities with respect to the contemplated sale of ammunition to the Jamaican government. The key part of that definition is that a broker is someone who acts “as an agent for others” in arranging for the sale of defense articles “in return for a fee.” The allegations of the criminal complaint do not provide any evidence that Brooks was acting for anyone other than himself in arranging this contract or that he was going to receive any fee from that other person. Instead, it appears that Brooks was engaged in a transaction on his own behalf and expected a sales profit on the deal rather than a third-party fee or commission.

If what Brooks did — namely, negotiating a contract for a defense article prior to receiving an export license — is brokering, than almost every exporter will be subject to criminal penalties if they haven’t registered as a broker. Worse, those exporters may need to obtain brokering licenses from DDTC before even talking to potential customers with respect to transactions that fall within the brokerage licensing requirements of section 129.6.

Exporters that had such a poor understanding of the ITAR as these federal enforcement officials would likely be fined or worse when their misunderstandings led to rule violations; no such negative consequences, however, await these enforcement officials who appear not to have even a rudimentary understanding of Part 129 or the definition of a “broker” under that Part. One can only hope that Brooks’s public defender reads Part 129 with slightly more care and gets these charges dismissed.

A magistrate hearing pretrial motions in the criminal export case against Doli Syarief Pulungan wondered in a recently issued Report and Recommendation¹ whether there might be a secret version of the USML which lists actual items rather than categories of items. Of course it’s impossible for me to say whether or not there is a “secret” list of that sort with any certainty, since if I knew about it, it wouldn’t be so secret. I don’t think such a list exists, however, but I do think its useful to see what caused the magistrate to wonder about such a list.

As we reported in an earlier post, Pulungan is charged with conspiring to export 100 Leupold Mark 4 CQ/T Rifle Scopes to Indonesia without a license. One of Pulungan’s pretrial motions was for a bill of particulars describing “the specifications to which the subject riflescopes were manufactured that make them defense articles on the Munitions List.” According to the magistrate’s report:

The government’s initial response is that its expert will testify at trial that Leupold Mark 4 CQ/T Riflescopes are on the Munitions List. Pulungan rejoins with an obvious observation: the list itself does not specify any brand or model of riflescope, nor does it list the specifications that would make the scopes defense articles; so what relevant testimony could this ostensible expert possibly provide? Pulungan wants a breakout of the implied syllogism: a riflescope that possesses characteristics x, y and z is deemed to be manufactured to military specifications; a Leupold Mark 4 CQ/T Riflescope possesses characteristics x, y and z; therefore, a Leupold Mark 4 CQ/T Riflescope is manufactured to military specifications. What, asks Pulungan, are x, y and z?

Of course the answer to that question is hardly a deep, dark secret. Leupold’s web site reveals that the scope was designed for the M16. Rather than saying this, however, the prosecution tried to be cute, and that’s where the trouble begins. The magistrate continues:

The government responds that it doesn’t work this way. There is no x, y or z factor that lands a riflescope on the Munitions List in Category I(f). The only logical way to interpret the government’s response is that there is another list, prepared by the DDTC, which determines whether any particular item is a defense article included on the Munitions List as part of ITAR.

The magistrate goes on to note that the government in its pleading says that an item “is designated as a ‘defense article’ on the United States Munitions List” or “defined by the ITAR as a ‘defense article’ covered by Category I(f)”:

If I am interpreting Count 1’s passive-voice declaration and the government’s explanation correctly, then some person or committee within the DDTC has declared that the Leupold Mark 4 CQ/T Riflescope is a “defense article” because it fits within Category I(f) of the Munitions list. But this doesn’t answer Pulungan’s actual complaint: how did it get there? Where, precisely, might a potential exporter actually find this ITAR designation of the Leupold Mark 4 CQ/T Riflescope? What is the foundational basis for the testimony of the government’s trial witness from the DDTC? Does the DDTC have some other real list by make and model? Is there a memo specific to the Leupold scope’s I(f) designation? If so, where is it and why hasn’t it been provided to Pulungan as pretrial discovery?

Following this logic to its end, the Magistrate ordered the prosecution to provide the who, how and why of the designation:

[T]he government promptly must explain in detail who designated the Leupold Mark 4 CQ/T Riflescope a “defense article,” how they did it (the procedural mechanisms) and why they did it (the actual and specific reasons for the designation).

To which we can anticipate the government will respond: nobody designated the Mark 4, there was no procedure that designated it, and no specific reasons were given. The scope is a USML item because it was manufactured to be used on the M16.

You can easily see how the government’s loose language got it into this silly predicament. Items aren’t on the USML; just categories are on the USML and items are either in a USML category or not. The Mark 4 scope isn’t designated on the USML. “Riflescopes manufactured to military specifications” are designated category I(f) on the USML and the Mark 4 either is or isn’t a “riflescope manufactured to military specifications.”

And the issue before the court is not the designation of milspec rifle scopes as category I(f), a designation which is not reviewable under section 38(h) of the Arms Export Control Act, 22 U.S.C. § 2778(h), but simply whether the Mark 4 is or is not a “riflescope manufactured to military specifications.”

It is only a semantic distinction to note that the category not the scope itself is on the USML, but failing to observe that distinction clearly resulted in the magistrate issuing an order that he might not have otherwise issued.

¹ Westlaw subscription required.

ABOVE: Iran’s 9th Olefin Petrochemical
Complex

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Earlier this month, French corporation Cryostar SA entered a guilty plea to various export violations arising from its role in a scheme to export cryogenic pumps for installation in the 9th Olefin Petroleum Complex in Iran.

In 2001 a French company, identified only as “TN,” approached Ebara International Corp., Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of cryogenic pumps, i.e., pumps designed to work with liquids at very low temperatures, and sought to purchase various cryogenic pumps worth almost $750,000. The two companies enlisted Cryostar to act as an intermediary in the plan. The pumps were sold to Cryostar in France, which then resold the pumps to “TN,” which, in turn, exported the pumps to Iran. Cryostar created false invoices indicating that it was the end user of the pump.

Cryostar has no offices in the United States, and it does not appear that any company employees entered the United States in connection with this transaction. Rather the jurisdictional bases for the prosecution are (1) the questionable theory that the items involved were U.S.-origin items and (2) the much sounder theory that Cryostar participated in misrepresentations to U.S. authorities.

Of course, the real question is what motivated Cryostar to get involved in this deal in the first place. Why weren’t the items exported directly to “TN,” which could have held itself out as the end user of the items in France? Well the answer to that question becomes clearer once a reasonable surmise is made as to the identity of “TN.”

The DOJ press release on the guilty plea identifies “TN” as “a a French company with a U.S. subsidiary.” An article on the Chemicals Technology website, notes that French company “Technip and its Iranian partner Nargan were awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the” petrochemical facility. And Technip has a U.S. subsidiary.

Now, this is not proof that Technip is the same company as “TN,” but it is certainly a reasonable surmise. Additionally, since Technip’s participation in the Iranian project was well-known, this explains why it would have sought an intermediary to make the false claim that the pumps were being installed in France. Such a claim from Technip would have been less believable.

Under the written plea agreement, Cryostar has agreed to a fine of $500,000 and two years corporate probation. I imagine that the execs at Cryostar are now ruing the day that agreed to a corporate favor for another French company. They may have been hoping for a few dinners at Pierre Gagnaire paid for by Technip, but wound up getting more than they bargained for.

ABOVE: Vibro-Meter Pressure
Indicators

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A story by Dan Browning in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune alerted me to an investigation of Global Engineering Associates (”GEA”), a company located in a Minneapolis suburb. According to a recently unsealed search warrant (which Dan Browning was kind enough to send to me), GEA is being investigated for alleged shipments of pressure indicators and radio mounts to Singapore.

A search warrant needs to show probable cause for all elements of the crime and, of course, the scienter element of the violation — i.e. evidence that the defendant knew that the exports were in violation of the law — is, as usual, the hardest part to establish. The affidavit supporting the search warrant places its main emphasis on a visit made to GEA by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under “Project Shield America,” a national outreach program initiated by ICE to inform exporters of export licensing requirements. According to the affidavit:

Special Agent Cramsey and Leff [the CEO of GEA] discussed the Project Shield America program in detail and exchanged business cards. Leff was given copies of the Project Shield America brochures for his review. Leff stated that he would be happy to review the literature to ensure his company was in compliance with all US export laws and regulations.

I don’t think I’m being too much of a cynic to suggest that this is a thin reed upon which to base scienter, and it’s not the first time that ICE has tried to use Project Shield America as a basis for claiming that export violations were willful. There is no question that the project teaches exporters that licenses are required for military and dual-use items. The problem is it provides little guidance to exporters in how to determine whether items are military or dual-use items.

In this case, the items in question aren’t obviously military items. Vibro-Meter, the manufacturer of the pressure indicators in question, produces pressure indicators for both civil and military aircraft. Nor does a “radio mount” have anything about it that inherently suggests that it is a military item. Indeed, ICE needed to request a specific determination from the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls to get the information necessary to conclude that these were military items on the USML. So, a friendly visit from ICE agents and a short brochure aren’t going to establish that GEA knew that these items were military items and therefore subject to export licensing requirements.

There are two other facts alleged in the affidavit that might support probable cause on the scienter element. First, there is a claim that the invoice inside the shipping packages differed from descriptions of the items in the shipping documents. However, it appears from the affidavit that the enclosed invoice simply had more detail than the descriptions in the shipping document, not necessarily an indication of criminal intent by the exporter. Second, the affidavit indicates that GEA never inquired about the two shipments containing the allegedly export-controlled items, both of which were seized by customs. That is, admittedly, somewhat more suspect, but there could be a number of innocent explanations.

The important consideration here is an issue that increasingly needs to be addressed. Export prosecutions have begun to veer from prosecution for exports of items that reasonable people would clearly realize were export-controlled — guns, tanks, night vision and the like — to less obvious items such as involved in this case. Some procedure needs to be implemented to assist exporters in determining export classification, and the current commodity jurisdiction procedure, which can take a year or more, is broken and not the answer.

Daniel Max Sherman, a former employee of Knoxville-based Atmospheric Glow Technologies, entered a guilty plea today in federal court to a conspiracy with a former University of Tennessee professor to provide controlled technical data to a Chinese student research assistant in violation of the Arms Export Control Act. AGT had given a subcontract relating to its research on a military drone aircraft to UT’s Plasma Sciences Laboratory, and the professor and the Chinese research assistant were working on the project.

Sherman’s plea hearing went a little off track when Sherman declined to admit to one of the essential elements of the crime which led to a little prompting — and a misstatement of the law — by the prosecutors:

Sherman indicated to [Judge] Varlan that although he was admitting guilt he maintains he was unaware of the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act that would have restricted the work to U.S. citizens only barring a special permitting process. However, [prosecuting attorney]Theodore noted that the law states a person violating the action either must know or should have known about the act’s requirements and Sherman’s claim of ignorance would not pass muster.

Sherman then conceded that point and formally entered his guilty plea.

The AECA’s requirement of willfulness as an element of a criminal charge is a requirement that the defendant knew that the export was illegal. It is not whether the defendant knew or should have known that the export was illegal. Increasingly, it seems, U.S. attorneys are finding the scienter requirement to be too pesky to bother with and are looking for novel ways to disregard it.

[Thanks to Mike Deal for alerting me to this story.]

The Chi Mak case has engendered its fair share of confusion, and the latest victim is a trade law attorney who submitted a brief article to an export law newsletter that was published today. According to that article, the verdict in Chi Mak stands for the proposition that public domain data about defense articles can’t be exported to China. That’s simply wrong and betrays a fundamental misapprehension both of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (”ITAR”) and what went on in the Chi Mak case. (Fair disclosure: I advised the Chi Mak defense team on the public domain issue in that case).

The article states:

The case sets the precedent that “technical data”, despite entering the “public domain”, requires an export license from the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) if China is the country of export. The jury’s finding reinforces this interpretation of the ITAR, and the subsequently heavy sentence by Judge Carmey reflects the seriousness the United States deems Chinese acquisition of military knowledge.

What the author apparently didn’t understand was that an instruction was given, and agreed to by the prosecutors, that if the data was in the public domain as defined by section 120.11(a) of the ITAR, it wasn’t subject to ITAR. So the jury’s conviction represents a determination that the items weren’t in the public domain as so defined.

For example, the conference exception in section 120.11(a)(6) doesn’t cover every conference. That exception was at issue in the Chi Mak case because the documents were alleged to have been presented at an American Society of Naval Engineers (”ASNE”) conference According to that exception, a document is public domain if it is generally accessible to the public:

Through unlimited distribution at a conference, meeting, seminar, trade show or exhibition, generally accessible to the public, in the United States.

The jury may well have determined that the ASNE conference wasn’t “generally accessible to the public.”

The article goes even further astray when it tries to find a basis in the ITAR for a conclusion that public domain technical data can’t be exported to China.

§125.4 contains the licensing exemptions provision of ITAR. §125.4(a) states:

“The following exemptions [§125(b)(1)-(13)] apply to exports of technical data for which approval is not needed from the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. These exemptions, except for paragraph (b)(13) of this section, do not apply to exports to proscribed destinations under § 126.1 of this subchapter…”

So if §125.4 is the exclusive exemption section of the ITAR, and China is excluded from any exemption as a country listed in §126.1, then it follows all technical data exported to China requires a license regardless of its presence in the public domain.

The critical problem with this analysis is that the definition which excludes public domain information from the definition of technical data isn’t an exemption mentioned in § 125.4. It isn’t even an exemption at all or it would be covered by section 126.1 itself, as the prosecutors initially argued, which notes that the “exemptions” in the ITAR aren’t applicable to China and the other proscribed countries.

Rather public domain material is excluded from the definition of technical data covered by the regulations. Exemptions are exceptions to licensing requirements for technical data otherwise subject to ITAR such as, for example, technical data being returned to the original source of import or technical data exported in furtherance of an approved technical assistance agreement. But if information is public domain under § 120.11, it isn’t technical data at all under § 120.10, and it can be exported without license and without reference to any exemptions.

A case that makes clear the difference between a definitional exclusion and an exemption is the way that the USML handles the QRS-11 quartz rate sensor navigational chip. There is now a note to Category VIII(e) that excludes such sensors when, among other things, they are integrated into a civil aircraft. The reason for this was to permit Boeing aircraft (all of which were equipped with the QRS-11 chip) to be exported to China. If the note is seen as an “exemption” for sensors in civil aircraft rather than as a definitional exclusion from the USML, then § 126.1 would proscribe exports of those planes to China, which was not the result contemplated by DDTC when it added that note to the USML

In short, exemptions and definitional exclusions are two very different things in the ITAR and you confuse them at your peril as did the author of the article in question. Frankly he should have been suspicious of his own conclusion because by his reasoning if someone tells a Chinese national that the B-2 stealth bomber has a “bat-wing” shape to reduce its radar cross-section, that person would be committing a criminal act, even though everyone who hasn’t spent the last two decades in a cave in Siberia is aware of the shape of a B-2 bomber and its purpose.

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.

The saga of the government’s ill-fated prosecution of Alex Latifi and his company Axion Corporation continues. The federal district court judge delivered yet another forceful gavel whack to the hands of the prosecutors and awarded the acquitted defendants legal fees, filing costs and expert witness fees and costs incurred in defending the prosecution. Latifi and Axion were accused of violating the Arms Export Control Act by emailing to a Chinese company technical drawings of a part used in the Black Hawk helicopter. The defense successfully argued that the drawing was available on the Internet and subject to the public domain exception under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

This is the first time, at least that I am aware of, where the U.S. government has been ordered to reimburse legal fees and costs incurred by defendant during an unsuccessful prosecution for export violations. Sources close to the case cited statements by prosecutors that they didn’t care whether the prosecution was successful and that their only goal was to put Latifi and Axion out of business.

There’s an interesting angle to the award aside from its uniqueness. We had previously noted that the defense team filed a motion under the Hyde Amendment (18 U.S.C. § 3006A Note) for recovery of attorneys’ fees, but in fact the court awarded the fees under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (”CAFRA”) which provides for larger recoveries by acquitted defendants and a looser standard for recovery. Under the Hyde Amendment the acquitted defendant must prove that the prosecution was “vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith.” Additionally, legal fees recovered under the Hyde Amendment are subject to the $125 per hour fee cap provided in 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(2)(A). CAFRA, on the other hand, imposes no such fee limit and provides for recovery in a forfeiture proceeding in which the defendant “substantially prevails.”

The reason that CAFRA was deemed applicable in this case was because the prosecutors included civil forfeiture counts in the indictment. This has been an increasing practice where prosecutors seek forfeiture of all profits related to the illegal exports. The decision of the district court in the Axion case to use the forfeiture claims as a basis for awarding all costs incurred by the defendant as a result of the forfeiture claim may cause prosecutors to rethink including such claims in the indictment.

(Full disclosure: I was interviewed and quoted in the linked article about the award of attorneys’ fees to the defendants in the Axion case)

ABOVE: Endevco 7270A-200K accelerometer

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We’ve posted here previously about the indictment of Qing Li for allegedly attempting to export Endevco 7270A-200K accelerometers without a license to China. That case is proceeding to trial, and the trial court rejected* Qing Li’s claim that the United States Munitions List, as applied in her case, was unconstitutionally vague.

The court characterized defendant Qing Li’s argument as follows:

Defendant argues that the court should dismiss the indictment because the [Arms Export Control Act] and its implementing regulations are unconstitutionally vague as applied to her. Specifically, Defendant argues that a person of ordinary intelligence could not determine that the Endevco accelerometer device is a “military accelerometer” requiring an export license. In support of this argument, she attaches to her motion two pages of manufacturer-provided “public information” regarding the Endevco accelerometer. She argues that “[a] person of ordinary intelligence would likely deem that data sheet incomprehensible,” and that the sheet does not indicate whether the device is for military or weapons use. (Mot. at 3.) She also emphasizes the allegation that even prosecutors must request information from the State Department to determine if an item is on the list.

I haven’t looked at the trial court record but the Endevco “public information” regarding the accelerometer is presumably this data sheet which, admittedly, doesn’t state that the item is on the USML or is export-controlled. And, of course, I’m sure that the argument that even the prosecution had to ask the State Department whether this accelerometer was USML or not elicited some sympathetic nods.

The court quite properly declined to make this a case about whether the USML description of military accelerometers is unconstitutionally vague, stating:

The court notes that not only does Defendant fail to cite a single case in which the court found the AECA unconstitutionally vague, her argument emphasizes the premature and misdirected nature of her challenge. Because the charging statute contains a scienter requirement (willful violation), innocent, accidental, or unknowing exportation of a proscribed device cannot support a conviction. Therefore, the relevant inquiry consists not of an abstract analysis of constitutional vagueness, but what Defendant knew. Such an inquiry will be undertaken by a jury and based on the evidence adduced at trial. See Lee, 183 F.3d at 1032-33 . Here, the factual record has yet to be developed. Until an evidentiary record is created, the court cannot determine whether Defendant “in fact had fair notice that the statute and regulations proscribed [her] conduct.” Hsu, 364 F.3d at 196. Application of these cited controlling authorities, in essence, renders Defendant’s constitutional challenge moot at this juncture.

Readers of this blog with sharp memories may recall, as we discussed here, that the indictment alleged some facts that suggest that Qing Li might indeed have known that the accelerometer was indeed covered by the USML. The undercover agent from whom Ms. Li was trying to purchase the accelerometer allegedly told her that the export required a license and he didn’t think one could be obtained. And although she appeared to walk away from the transaction at that point, citing the “risk” involved, the indictment alleged that she continued to direct the negotiations between the undercover agent and a contact in China.

*Westlaw subscription required