Month: December 2022

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Berryville Man Sentenced to Over 6 Years in Federal Prison for Receipt of Child Porn

Source: United States Department of Justice News

FORT SMITH – A Berryville man was sentenced yesterday to 75 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release on one count of Receipt of Child Pornography. The Honorable Judge P.K. Holmes, III presided over the sentencing hearing in the U.S. District Court in Fort Smith.

According to court documents, in January of 2022, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Fayetteville, received a Cyber Tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which reported that an unknown person was utilizing an account on the Kik Messenger application to upload media files including child pornography.  An investigation into the IP addresses and the Kik account information revealed the account owner to be Andrew Cruz Tovar-Reyes, age 20, of Berryville, Arkansas.  Tovar-Reyes admitted to receiving child pornography using his Kik account through his cellphone.  Berryville Police Department arrested Tovar-Reyes on February 15, 2022.

Tovar-Reyes was indicted by a Grand Jury in April 2022 and pled guilty in June 2022.

U.S. Attorney David Clay Fowlkes of the Western District of Arkansas made the announcement.

Homeland Security Investigations Fayetteville, the Northwest Arkansas Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and the Berryville Police Department investigated the case. 

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carly Marshall and Kyra Jenner prosecuted the case.

This case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

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Texas Man Pleads Guilty to Lying About Origin of Chinese-Made Products

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A Grand Prairie man pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying to the federal government about where his company’s products were manufactured, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.

Suhaib Allababidi, 45, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. His company, 2M Solutions Inc., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and one count of filing false or misleading export information.

According to court documents, Mr. Allababidi, the owner and president of 2M, admitted that the company – which provided security cameras, solar-powered light towers, digital video recorders, and other electronics to various U.S. government agencies – claimed that its products were manufactured in the United States, when in actuality they were manufactured in the People’s Republic of China by Chinese companies.

In order to secure contracts with U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Allababidi represented that 2M was “a USA Manufacturing Company.”  In actuality, 2M did little to no manufacturing but instead regularly purchased products from Chinese companies, removed labels indicating the true country of origin, and replaced them with labels indicating they were manufactured in 2M’s Grand Prairie facility.  On its packaging, 2M included logos including the American flag in the shape of a map of the U.S. and the words “Made in the USA.”

By falsely representing that its products were manufactured in the United States, 2M was able to secure contracts subject to the Buy America Act (BAA), a law which generally prohibits United States Government agencies from purchasing products made outside the United States with some limited exceptions.

2M repeatedly certified to the government that its products were BAA-compliant and took various steps to conceal their Chinese origin.  On one occasion, when products were to be shipped directly from a Chinese company to the government agency, a 2M employee sent the Chinese company an email reminding them, “we do not want any Chinese characters or stickers on the shipment” and adding that such stickers “will cause many problems for us.”

2M also pled guilty to submitting false information in relation to products exported to foreign customers.  In contravention of export laws, the company submitted false information to the Automated Export System, a government-run platform that collects export information and distributes it to multiple federal agencies to assure compliance. The company falsified the description of items exported, misrepresented the ultimate recipient of the items, and falsely stated that no export license was needed for shipments that required a license.

“The federal government takes pride in purchasing products made in the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham. “This defendant’s lies undermined the Buy America Act and with it, American manufacturing.”

“Today’s outcome demonstrates the commitment of the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) and our law enforcement partners to protect the integrity of the DoD procurement process,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Gregory P. Shilling, DCIS Southwest Field Office.  “We will continue to aggressively investigate and hold accountable those who put the DoD supply chain at risk.”

Mr. Allababidi now faces up to five years in federal prison. 2M faces fines of up to $1 million or twice the amount of criminally-derived property, whichever is greater.

The Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Dallas Field Office, the U.S. Department of Commerce – Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement, the General Services Administration’s Office of Inspector General,  Homeland Security Investigations, and the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Weimer prosecuted the case with the assistance of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

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Team Telecom Recommends the FCC Deny Application to Directly Connect the United States to Cuba Through Subsea Cable

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Applicants Sought License to Modify the ARCOS-1 Cable System to Add a Cable Landing Station in Cuba to the System

The Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector, aka Team Telecom or the Committee, today recommended that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deny an application by ARCOS-1 USA Inc. and A.SurNet Inc. subsea cable system (ARCOS-1 Cable System) to modify the system by adding an additional segment directly connected to the United States through a new landing station in Cojimar, Cuba.

“The United States supports an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable internet around the world, including in Cuba. Unfortunately, the Cuban government does not share that view,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “As long as the Government of Cuba poses a counterintelligence threat to the United States, and partners with others who do the same, the risks to our critical infrastructure are simply too great.”

As submitted to the FCC, the ARCOS-1 Cable System application would have allowed for the only direct, commercial subsea cable connection between the United States and Cuba. This raised national security concerns, as the cable-landing system in Cuba would be owned and controlled by Cuba’s state-owned telecommunications monopoly, Empresa de Telecommunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA). The Government of Cuba – which the United States recognizes as authoritarian and a foreign adversary of the United States – could access sensitive U.S. data traversing the new cable segment through its control of ETECSA.

The Committee’s recommendation was based on factors including the following:

  • The Government of Cuba has long represented a significant counterintelligence threat to the United States by virtue of its espionage and other intelligence activities targeting the United States. Directly connecting an undersea cable from the United States to Cuba, where a Cuban state-owned company would have exclusive use of the cable, control over that cable’s Cuban landing station, and remote access to traffic on it, could advance the Cuban government’s intelligence objectives by giving it direct access to the U.S. persons’ communications and sensitive data traversing the cable.
  • This risk of access is not limited to U.S. traffic destined for Cuba. There are several ways in which traffic destined for places outside Cuba, which otherwise would not traverse Cuban networks, could nonetheless be misrouted by ETECSA or otherwise re-routed over this cable into Cuban territory and the Cuban government’s hands. 
  • These risks are exacerbated by the Cuban government’s relationships with other foreign adversaries, including the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation. The Cuban government could share any information collected from this cable with those foreign adversaries – thereby advancing additional counterintelligence efforts by foreign adversaries against the United States.

Subsea fiber optic cable systems are a critical national security asset and carry most of the world’s internet, voice and data traffic between continents. Although the United States supports the Cuban people’s access to an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable internet, the Committee found that this particular license application pertains to a cable landing that presents unacceptable risks to U.S. national security and law enforcement interests that cannot be mitigated.

The Committee was established pursuant to Executive Order 13913 and is led by the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, Foreign Investment Review Section. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense are fellow members of the Committee. The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration filed the recommendation on behalf of the Executive Branch.

More information concerning the Committee’s recommendation is available on the FCC’s International Bureau Filing System (IBFS), under Docket Number SCL-MOD-20210928-00039

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Fourth unlawful entry lands Mexican citizen in prison

Source: United States Department of Justice News

BROWNSVILLE, Texas – A 36-year-old man has been ordered to federal prison following his conviction of illegal re-entry into the United States, announced U.S. Attorney Jennifer B. Lowery.

Raul Catalino Vasquez-Estrada, Ciudad Altamirano, Guerrero, Mexico, pleaded guilty May 4.

Today, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. ordered Vasquez-Estrada to serve 50 months in federal prison. The court also ordered him to serve an additional seven months for violating his conditions of supervised release. Not a U.S. citizen, Vasquez-Estrada is again expected to face removal proceedings following his imprisonment. At the hearing, the court heard additional evidence of Vazquez-Estrada’s previous criminal history.

On March 1, authorities arrested Raul Catalino Estrada-Vasquez approximately 2.9 miles west of the Gateway Port of Entry in Brownsville. Estrada-Vasquez did not possess any documents that allowed him to be or remain in the United States legally. 

Estrada-Vasquez has been and will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

Border Patrol conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Coronado prosecuted the case.

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Man from Las Cruces pleads guilty to carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury

Source: United States Department of Justice News

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Alexander M.M. Uballez, United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, announced that Jesus Manuel Castaneda-Villa pleaded guilty on Nov. 29 to carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury. Castaneda-Villa, 32, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, will remain in custody pending sentencing, which has not been scheduled.

According to the plea agreement and other court records, on Dec. 3, 2021, the victim allegedly met with Castaneda-Villa, her ex-boyfriend, in a La Quinta hotel in Las Cruces. After the two began to argue, Castaneda-Villa threw a toolbox at the victim. He demanded her car keys, threatened to put a “bullet through your head,” then pointed a firearm at her and took her purse and cell phone. As Castaneda-Villa was going through her purse, the victim jumped from an open window to escape. Castaneda-Villa then fled in the victim’s vehicle.

During her escape, the victim broke her right wrist, which caused her extreme physical pain and resulted in the protracted impairment of her ability to use her right hand.

 By the terms of the plea agreement, Castaneda-Villa faces 11 years and eight months in prison.

The Las Cruces Resident Agency of the FBI Albuquerque Field Office investigated this case with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service, Las Cruces Police Department, New Mexico State Police and District Attorney’s Office for the 3rd Judicial District of New Mexico. Assistant United States Attorneys Marisa A. Ong and Matilda McCarthy Villalobos are prosecuting the case.

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