Man pleads guilty of export controls fraud, undervalued hi-tech shipments to Pakistan

A West Virginia man has pleaded guilty to violating US export control laws by undervaluing and falsifying invoices for high technology items shipped to Pakistan, the Department of Justice (‘DoJ’) said.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Rana Zeeshan Tanveer admitted to knowingly submitting false export valuations for multiple U.S. origin technology items he exported to Pakistan from 2014 to 2018. In June 2017, Tanveer purchased two high technology items for over $4,000 and intentionally used a false invoice that understated their value as less than $200 before shipping them to Pakistan using a freight forwarding service.

Tanveer is scheduled to be sentenced on 4 August and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

‘Knowingly undervaluing shipments in order to avoid export reporting requirements is a violation of U.S. export control rules,’ said Scott Anderson, a special agent with the Department of Commerce’s Office of Export Enforcement.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/west-virginia-man-pleads-guilty-export-fraud-violation