Chinese citizen sentenced for attempting to export restricted technology

SEATTLE – A Chinese national convicted of conspiring to violate the Arms Export Control Act was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court to 18 months in prison, following a probe by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Yue Wu, 41, was arrested Oct. 23, 2014, at San Francisco International Airport as he prepared to leave the United States. Wu had made an unrelated visit to the U.S. after spending more than two years attempting to obtain a type of accelerometer which is restricted for export from the U.S. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg.

At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones said, “Any time the national security of the United States is implicated, as it was here, that makes it a very serious offense for this and every other federal court.”

According to records filed in the case, in January 2012 Wu began attempting to obtain a type of accelerometer which is used in satellites and spacecraft and can only be exported from the U.S. if a license is issued by the U.S. State Department. On multiple occasions Wu sought to convince a contact to send the accelerometers to China, either by disguising them in a different export, or by shipping them through a different country. Wu did not know the person he was working with to obtain the equipment was an undercover law enforcement agent. Over the next two years, via email and telephone communications from China, Wu continued to try to get the contact to ship him the accelerometers through various schemes.