WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States has charged 53-year-old Florida resident Amin Yu with conspiring to export components to Chinese entities to develop unmanned underwater vehicles, the US Department of Justice announced in a statement on Thursday.
"An 18-count superseding indictment was unsealed today charging Amin Yu, 53, of Orlando, Florida, with acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government in the United States without prior notification to the Attorney General," the statement said.
The Justice Department stated that Yu conspired to defraud and to commit offenses against the United States by "committing unlawful export information activities, smuggling goods… [and] conspiring to and committing international money laundering."
From 2002 to 2014, the Justice Department noted, Yu worked for China’s state sponsored Harbin Engineering University (HEU) to gather systems and components for marine submersible vehicles from US companies.
Yu was able to export the items by not filing electronic export information required under US law, and also by filling false electronic export information, according to the Justice Department.
If convicted, Yu faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison for each of the money laundering counts, a maximum sentence of 10 years for acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government as well as another five years for all the remaining counts.
