Where Industry and Security Intersect
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Kenneth Juster, Under Secretary for The Bureau of Export Administration (BXA), announced today the imposition of a $30,000 civil penalty on Immediate Customs Service Inc., an international freight forwarder and customs broker located in Jamaica, NY, for engaging in illegal export transactions with a person whose U.S. export privileges had previously been stripped. The Department of Commerce through its Bureau of Export Administration administers and enforces export controls for reasons of national security, foreign policy, nonproliferation, and short supply. Criminal penalties and administrative sanctions can be imposed for violations of the Regulations.
On four separate occasions between 1995 and 1996, Immediate Customs Service, Inc. illegally shipped commodities to Cosmotrans AG in Switzerland. The Department of Commerce had denied Cosmotrans AG U.S. export privileges in May, 1988, for 20 years for violations that included conspiring and acting in concert with others to divert U.S.-origin electronic test equipment (controlled for national security reasons) to unauthorized end-users and destinations within the Eastern Bloc (USSR, East Germany, and Bulgaria) without the required Department of Commerce Licenses; aiding and abetting the diversion of U.S.-origin electronic test equipment knowing that the required reexport authorization had not been obtained; and preparing false shipping documents.
A trial based on these charges was held in Baltimore, MD, on February 28, 2001, before Administrative Law Judge Peter Fitzpatrick. On May 9, 2001, Judge Fitzpatrick's Recommended Decision and Order was issued. He found Immediate Customs Service Inc. guilty of the four violations, and imposed a penalty of $30,000 with $20,000 to be suspended for five years. If in that five year period no further violations occur, the $20,00 will be waived.
Mr. Juster commended the efforts of Special Agent Allan Frankel, assigned to New York's Office of Export Enforcement, who investigated this case, and Attorney Melissa Mannino, Office of the Chief Counsel, who tried the case.
In April of 2002 the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) changed its name to the Bureau of Industry and Security(BIS). For historical purposes we have not changed the references to BXA in the legacy documents found in the Archived Press and Public Information.