Tuesday, May 31, 2011
"Pakistan still smuggling nuclear goods from U.S."
From The Hindu
A top Washington think tank has argued that recent examples of nuclear industry goods being smuggled from the United States to Pakistan highlight the need for closer monitoring and raise questions about how an ostensible “ally” of the U.S. could be involved in this illicit trade.
Speaking to The Hindu David Albright, President and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said the “U.S. government and the nuclear industry need to be working closer together” if such smuggling rings were to be detected.
Reflecting upon an ISIS paper that examined the case of Pakistani Nadeem Akhtar, Mr. Albright said, “The U.S. government should simply ask Pakistan to stop this trade, if they want to be our allies,” adding that the recent cases in which smuggling rings were caught they ultimately lead back to supply orders originating in Pakistan.
Akhtar's case made news last month when U.S. prosecutors charged him with “running a smuggling operation that shipped materials and equipment to the agencies operating Pakistan's nuclear program,” according to media reports.
Akhtar (45) was said to have operated an export firm in Maryland, which obtained items such as radiation-detection devices, calibration equipment and nuclear-grade resins from a company based in North Dakota and passed them on to “agencies that are on a U.S. Commerce Department blacklist.” The orders made to the U.S. company dated back to 2005 and 2006.
Specifically the two Pakistani entities that received goods through Akhtar's alleged illicit procurement operation were the Chashma nuclear power plant and the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission. ISIS reported that in 2006 and 2008 Akhtar purchased equipment from a Massachusetts company used to control electrical circuits in nuclear power and fuel reprocessing plants and shipped them to the Chashma plant.
Dual-use goods
According to ISIS, among the tactics that Akhtar allegedly used to obtain the dual-use goods were “using a U.S. company to buy goods from another U.S. company on his behalf, using a contractor of a U.S. company to buy goods, doing business with a U.S. company that knowingly or accidentally violated the U.S. ban on nuclear dual-use exports to Pakistan, and even lying to a Commerce Department official when asked about an end-user.”
As a result of these activities and also falsifying shipping documents and illegally routing goods to Pakistan via another Dubai-based company, Akhtar was said to be facing trial and up to five years in prison for conspiracy to commit export violations, 20 years for unlawfully exporting U.S. goods, and 20 years for conspiracy to commit money laundering, .
Mr. Albright told The Hindu, said the U.S. probably did not expect Pakistan to extradite the procurement agents implicated, yet given that the orders originated from the nuclear plants in Pakistan, official involvement in the smuggling ring was likely.
Mr. Albright said the recent events had echoes of the Asher Karni case of 2004, in which Karni, a Hungarian-born Israeli citizen was charged by U.S. authorities for involvement in the A.Q. Khan network of nuclear smugglers associated with the clandestine nuclear policy of Pakistan.
A top Washington think tank has argued that recent examples of nuclear industry goods being smuggled from the United States to Pakistan highlight the need for closer monitoring and raise questions about how an ostensible “ally” of the U.S. could be involved in this illicit trade.
Speaking to The Hindu David Albright, President and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said the “U.S. government and the nuclear industry need to be working closer together” if such smuggling rings were to be detected.
Reflecting upon an ISIS paper that examined the case of Pakistani Nadeem Akhtar, Mr. Albright said, “The U.S. government should simply ask Pakistan to stop this trade, if they want to be our allies,” adding that the recent cases in which smuggling rings were caught they ultimately lead back to supply orders originating in Pakistan.
Akhtar's case made news last month when U.S. prosecutors charged him with “running a smuggling operation that shipped materials and equipment to the agencies operating Pakistan's nuclear program,” according to media reports.
Akhtar (45) was said to have operated an export firm in Maryland, which obtained items such as radiation-detection devices, calibration equipment and nuclear-grade resins from a company based in North Dakota and passed them on to “agencies that are on a U.S. Commerce Department blacklist.” The orders made to the U.S. company dated back to 2005 and 2006.
Specifically the two Pakistani entities that received goods through Akhtar's alleged illicit procurement operation were the Chashma nuclear power plant and the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission. ISIS reported that in 2006 and 2008 Akhtar purchased equipment from a Massachusetts company used to control electrical circuits in nuclear power and fuel reprocessing plants and shipped them to the Chashma plant.
Dual-use goods
According to ISIS, among the tactics that Akhtar allegedly used to obtain the dual-use goods were “using a U.S. company to buy goods from another U.S. company on his behalf, using a contractor of a U.S. company to buy goods, doing business with a U.S. company that knowingly or accidentally violated the U.S. ban on nuclear dual-use exports to Pakistan, and even lying to a Commerce Department official when asked about an end-user.”
As a result of these activities and also falsifying shipping documents and illegally routing goods to Pakistan via another Dubai-based company, Akhtar was said to be facing trial and up to five years in prison for conspiracy to commit export violations, 20 years for unlawfully exporting U.S. goods, and 20 years for conspiracy to commit money laundering, .
Mr. Albright told The Hindu, said the U.S. probably did not expect Pakistan to extradite the procurement agents implicated, yet given that the orders originated from the nuclear plants in Pakistan, official involvement in the smuggling ring was likely.
Mr. Albright said the recent events had echoes of the Asher Karni case of 2004, in which Karni, a Hungarian-born Israeli citizen was charged by U.S. authorities for involvement in the A.Q. Khan network of nuclear smugglers associated with the clandestine nuclear policy of Pakistan.
# posted by Narayan Lakshman @ 3:10 PM 
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