Maryland residents Wilson Nuyila Tita of Owings Mills, Eric Fru Nji of Fort Washington and Wilson Che Fonguh of Bowie were charged Aug. 27 in a federal indictment at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland with conspiracty to violate the Arms Export Control Act and the Export Reform Control Act, the Department of Justice said. The three allegedly shipped firearms and ammunition from the U.S. to Nigeria, violating export restrictions.

After talks with the Commerce Department broke down over when Hong Kong-based apparel company Changji Esquel Textile (CJE) could be dropped from the agency's entity list, CJE resumed its litigation against the designation in federal court. The company, part of the Esquel group, on Aug. 27 filed a motion to re-set a hearing on a preliminary injunction against its placement on the list.

The U.S. case against Oregon-based hemp distributor We CBD is already proven since the company admitted to the wrongdoing in another case in the same court, the Department of Justice said in an Aug. 26 motion for judgment at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. When We CBD admitted to the export violations alleged by DOJ in its negligence case against Planet Nine Private Air over a charter plane service used to ship hemp, it effectively declared that CBP was right to confiscate the shipment, the motion said (United States v. Approximately 548.22 Pounds of Hemp Detained From We CBD LLC, on November 8, 2020 at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, W.D.N.C. #21-00267).

A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas returned a seven-count indictment against 101 individuals in a cellphone trafficking scheme, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas said Aug. 26 in a news release. Per the superseding indictment, the individuals stole personal electronics via armed robbery or fraud schemes in North Texas then shipped them overseas for sale. The personal electronics include cellphones, tablets, laptops and smart watches. The indictment alleges that the accused parties coordinated a series of armed robberies, as many as 23, in AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon retail cellphone stores around Dallas. The losses from the robberies is estimated at around $500,000.

Jorge Nobrega, chief executive of Achabal Technologies, was charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and commit money laundering, according to an Aug. 16 complaint filed at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Nobrega was charged in particular with violating the sanctions on Venezuela by repairing Venezuelan Air Force combat aircraft without an authorization (United States of America v. Jorge Nobrega, S.D. Fla. #21-03590).

Victor Yao Apeletey of Ghana, pleaded guilty on Aug. 17 to conspiring to export stolen motor vehicles, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York announced. During the first two months of 2020, Apeletey conspired with others to purchase the vehicles using stolen identities, then having them driven to Canada under the false premise of eventually being shipped to Ghana. The defendant purchased two vehicles, a 2020 Ford F-450 Super Duty and a 2019 Mercedes AMG GLE 63, using the stolen identities. The conspiracy charge brings a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the release said.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts was right to allow a new trial for Joseph Baptiste in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit said in an Aug. 9 opinion. Concurring with the district court that Baptiste's counsel was of such deficient performance to allow a retrial, a three-judge panel at the circuit court denied the U.S.'s appeal of the decision to run the trial back.

The Bureau of Industry and Security revoked export privileges for Matteo Taerri for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, BIS said in an Aug. 10 order. Taerri was convicted June 4, 2020, after illegally trying to export a U.S.-origin Prostak filter module to Iran without the required license from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Taerri was sentenced to time served, three years of supervised release and issued a $200 fine. BIS denied Taerri’s export privileges for 10 years from the date of conviction.

The Bureau of Industry and Security revoked export privileges for three people for illegally exporting defense goods without licenses, according to Aug. 9 orders.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut denied Arif Durrani's "frivolous" motion to vacate his 34-year-old conviction and sentence, in an Aug. 3 order. Durrani was convicted in 1987 of violating the Arms Export Control Act by shipping Hawk missile parts to Iran without a license. The issues raised in his September 2020 motion to vacate "have been exhaustively addressed -- and rejected -- in prior motions brought by Durrani," the court said. Durrani also has served his prison sentence. "Moreover, as the government notes, to the extent Durrani’s petition is construed as one under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, it necessarily fails because Durrani is no longer 'in custody' as required under the statute," the order said (Arif Durrani v. United States, D. Conn. #20-01373).