Chinese Nationals Charged With Smuggling US Tech to Iran’s Military

Missiles displayed in the Iranian capital Tehran in an undated file photo. Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

The Justice Department is charging four Chinese nationals for their alleged role in exporting American electronics to Iran.

Members of the alleged conspiracy smuggled electronic components from the United States through China and Hong Kong for the benefit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the United States designates as a terror organization.

“For more than a decade, the defendants allegedly orchestrated a scheme to smuggle U.S. manufactured parts to the IRGC and the Iranian agency charged with developing ballistic missiles and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles],” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a prepared statement.

Baoxia Liu, Yiu Wa Yung, Yongxin Li, and Yanlai Zhong have been indicted for unlawfully exporting and smuggling U.S. export-controlled items through China and Hong Kong from 2007 to 2020.

The defendants allegedly used an array of front companies in communist China to funnel dual-use technologies, including electronics and components that could be utilized in the production of drones and ballistic missile systems.

These products were then sold to sanctioned Iranian entities with ties to the IRGC and Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, which oversees the regime’s production of missiles and drones.

“Such efforts to unlawfully obtain U.S. technology directly threaten our national security, and we will use every tool at our disposal to sever the illicit supply chains that fuel the Iranian regime’s malign activity,” Mr. Olsen said.

“As a result, a vast amount of dual-use U.S.-origin commodities with military capabilities were exported from the United States to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions and export control laws and regulations.”

China–Iran Ties

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership vowed to “firmly support” Iran shortly after the beginning of the Israel–Hamas war in October 2023, which has led to more than 160 attacks on U.S. troops by Iran-backed groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

To that end, the CCP and Iran’s Islamist regime are increasingly coordinating with the intent of undermining U.S. national security.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified to Congress on Jan. 30 that the effort was part of a broader strategy by China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia to provide one another with mutual support against the United States.

“There are Iranian drones going to Russia to kill Ukrainian kids. There’s Russian energy flowing to China. There’s Chinese semiconductors flowing to the Russian defense industry. There’s Iranian oil [going] into both Russia and China,” Mr. Pompeo said.

“These actors are working to undermine the things that matter most to us here at home.”

That effort has led to a series of charges brought by U.S. law enforcement against China-based actors accused of stealing or illegally exporting advanced U.S. technologies.

In one such case last year, the Department of Justice charged a China-based network with providing components to Iran for the creation of weapons of mass destruction.

In another case unsealed last year, covering events from 1996 to 2019, two Chinese nationals were charged with stealing software used in parts for military aircraft and nuclear-powered submarines.

This week’s operation was coordinated by the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, an interagency unit created last year to prevent critical technology from flowing to authoritarian powers.