NEW DELHI: Five men associated with a Rawalpindi-based company called “Business World" were indicted by a US federal grand jury for conspiracy to procure goods for possible use in Pakistan’s strategic defence programmes.

The five have been identified as Muhammad Kamran Wali (“Kamran"), 41, of Pakistan; Muhammad Ahsan Wali (“Ahsan"), 48, and Haji Wali Muhammad Sheikh (“Haji"), 82, both of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada; Ashraf Khan Muhammad (“Khan") of Hong Kong; and Ahmed Waheed (“Waheed"), 52, of Ilford, Essex, United Kingdom by the United States Attorney’s Office, District of New Hampshire.

None of the five have been apprehended so far.

The five “were indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 and conspiracy to smuggle goods from the United States", US Attorney Scott W. Murray said, according to a press statement from US Attorney’s Office New Hampshire office.

“According to the indictment, between September 2014 and October 2019, the defendants operated an international procurement network of front companies that existed to acquire goods for the Advanced Engineering Research Organization (AERO) and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), and to cause those goods to be exported from the United States to the entities without export licenses in violation of federal law," the statement said.

Both AERO and PAEC are on the US Commerce Department’s Entity List, which imposes export license requirements for organizations whose activities are found to be contrary to US national security or foreign policy interests.

The PAEC was put on the Entity List in 1998 while AERO was added to the Entity List in 2014, after the US government found that it had used intermediaries and front companies to procure items for use in Pakistan’s cruise missile and strategic UAV programs.

According to the indictment, “the defendants attempted to conceal the true destinations in Pakistan of the US-origin goods by using the conspirators’ network of front companies as the supposed purchasers and end users of the goods and as the apparent source of payments for the goods, even though the goods were ultimately received in Pakistan and paid for by AERO or PAEC".

“The defendants and their network of front companies were never the actual end users of the goods exported from the U.S. The defendants caused the US companies to file export documents that falsely identified the ultimate consignees of the shipments as entities other than AERO and PAEC. The defendants never applied for or obtained an export license from the Commerce Department authorizing the export of goods to AERO or PAEC in Pakistan," the statement said.

“The defendants smuggled US origin goods to entities that have been designated for years as threats to U.S. national security for their ties to Pakistan’s weapons programs," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers according to the press statement.

“This indictment puts the world on notice not to do business with these defendants and demonstrates our commitment to holding them accountable. It also stands as an example of the kind of deceptive behavior USbusinesses need to watch out for in designing appropriate export control and sanctions compliance programs," he added.

Pakistan has been in the news in the past for illegally procuring technology and components to feed its nuclear and missile programmes. One of its key nuclear scientists Abdul Qadir Khan was also named in an illegal operation that he headed that supplied technology and components stolen from laboratories in Europe to countries like North Korea and Iran. There have also been reports of clandestine cooperation between China and Pakistan and North Korea and Pakistan on Islamabad’s nuclear and missile programmes.

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