Foreign smugglers target U.S. technology

WASHINGTON — Foreign smugglers are trying to ship U.S. technologies — which can be used for weapons and spy equipment — to China, Russia and other adversaries at rates that outpace shadowy and illegal exports during the Cold War, according to U.S. officials and experts.

In one recent case, a Texas businessman was paid $1.5 million to buy special radiationresistant circuits for space programs in Russia and China. The businessman, Peter A. Zuccarelli, was working with a smuggling ring run by a Pakistani-born American citizen; court documents show Zuccarelli created fake shipping documents and mislabeled the circuits as parts for touch-screen computers. He was sentenced in January to four years in prison.

In another case, Chinese citizen Fuyi Sun sought to buy M60 carbon fiber, which is used in military drones, from undercover federal agents at Homeland Security Investigations. Using the word “banana” as code for “carbon fiber,” Sun took steps to conceal and export $25,000 worth of the material he bought shortly before he was arrested. He was sentenced in September to three years in prison.

“He openly claimed in an email that he was closely associated with the military,” said Pete Gizas, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Since 2013, nearly 3,000 people have been swept up by Homeland Security Investigations alone for trying to smuggle weapons and sensitive technologies — including circuits or other products that can be used in ballistic missiles, drones or explosive devices. In that time, according to documents from the Department of Homeland Security, federal agents also seized more than 7,000 items, including microchips and jet engine parts, set to be smuggled out.

Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are some of the countries most active in trying to illegally acquire U.S. military technology, officials said.