WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th January, 2020) The United States indicted five men for illegally exporting US equipment to Pakistan's nuclear program, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.
"The defendants operated an international procurement network of front companies that existed to acquire US-origin goods for the Advanced Engineering Research Organization (AERO) and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC)," the department said in a press release.
The defendants sought to conceal shipments through companies that posed as purchasers of the equipment, which was ultimately sent to Pakistan and paid for by AERO or PAEC, the release said.
PAEC was sanctioned in 1998, the year Pakistan conducted its first tests of nuclear bombs, according to the release. AERO was added to the US sanctions list in 2014, after the US government found that it had used intermediaries and front companies to procure items for use in Pakistan's cruise missile and strategic drone programs.
Two of the defendants reside in Canada, while the others live in Pakistan, Hong Kong, and the UK, the release said. Although arrest warrants are pending, none of the five defendants has thus far been arrested, the release said.
