A US national has been arrested and charged with attempting to illegally ship a commercially restricted thermal-imaging camera to Pakistan.
If found guilty, Bilal Ahmed, 33, faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a USD 1 million fine.
He was released on a USD 100,000 secure bond.
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According to the Justice Department, the case involves a FLIR HRC-U thermal-imaging camera, which was on the Commerce Department's list of controlled export goods for reasons of national security and regional stability.
As a controlled material, a license was required from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security to export the camera to certain countries, including Pakistan.
Ahmed was charged with one count of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and one count of attempted smuggling of goods in violation of US export regulations in a two-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury yesterday.
He was initially charged in a criminal complaint and arrested on March 14, and he was subsequently released on a USD 100,000 secure bond.
No date has been set yet for Ahmed to be arraigned in a US District Court in Chicago.
According to the complaint affidavit and the indictment, Ahmed was the owner, president, and registered agent of Trexim Corp which used the address of a virtual office.
Between November 2013 and February of this year, Ahmed corresponded via email with a company in California and negotiated the purchase of a FLIR HRC-U camera for approximately USD 102,000, which he paid for with two cheques in February.
Ahmed took delivery of the camera on February 27 at a commercial shipping store.
On March 7, Ahmed allegedly took the camera, packaged in two boxes, to a different commercial shipper located in Elk Grove Village and left the packages to be shipped to a company in Pakistan, the Justice Department said.
The waybill included a handwritten note containing the letters "NLR", meaning no license required.
A search of US State and Commerce Department databases showed there were no licenses applied for or obtained by Ahmed, Trexim or any other related individual or company names for the export of a FLIR HRC-U camera from the US to Pakistan, the indictment alleges, the Justice Department said.
