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Firm Indicted for N-Sale to India

Suman Guha Mozumder in New York

A California-based firm has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of violating US laws by exporting nuclear pulse generators to two Indian government organisations.

According to the indictment, Berkeley Nucleonic Corporation and three of its employees solicited business and knowingly exported the nuclear pulse generators and related parts to various entities in India without an export license required by the US Department of Commerce.

The indictment comes amid reports of the possible lifting of sanctions against India by the Bush administration and reported revision of the 1979 Export Administration Act by Congress.

According to court documents, the defendants -- BNC, David Brown, company president; Richard Hamilton, marketing director, and Vincent Delfino, former operations manager -- shipped five nuclear pulse generators to India after sanctions imposed in the wake of India's 1998 nuclear tests were in place.

The defendants, court documents alleged, conspired to violate Export Administration Regulations by exporting US origin goods and technology controlled to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Nuclear Power Corporation in Bombay -- entities to which exports are controlled for national security' purposes.

According to an affidavit, the case against BNC began in November 1999, after a routine inspection by an official from the Office of Export Enforcement at a freight facility in California during which shipping documents showed that BNC exported a pulse generator to India.

Included in the documents was a shipper's export declaration, which lists BNC as the shipper and stated that the pulse generator was destined for the Government of India, Director of Purchases, Mumbai.

The SED declared the shipment for export required no license, according to the affidavit. It also alleged that included in the documents was an air waybill that showed BNC as the shipper and the consignee of the pulse generator as the State Bank of India, Overseas Branch, World Trade Centre, Mumbai.

During an undercover operation by the OEE, Hamilton told special agent Luis Hernandez, who posed as an exporter, in response to a question that BNC products do not require an export license, but that one had to be careful of whom one was sending products to because of the Commerce Department's Entity list.

On June 30, 1997, BARC was in the Entity List, thereby requiring an export license for exports, says the affidavit.

Hamilton told Hernandez the company has been "sending over there" with no problems. "But we are not shipping huge quantities, so maybe it's small enough that it just hasn't attracted attention."

The affidavit alleged Hamilton told Hernandez that sending pulse generators to India should not be a problem, saying: "Yeah, we don't go out and apply for any export license."

The defendants, however, called the case disingenuous at a time when there is talk about sanctions against India being lifted. "It is unusual timing," BNC attorney Steven Bauer was quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle as saying.

"There was a slight change in export regulations a few years ago that many companies missed. When (BNC) found this out, they tried to cooperate with the government to fix any problem, and for that, they get indicted.'

Prosecutors said no dates have been set for the defendants' appearance in court.

Indo-Asian News Service

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