2 CHINESE NATIONALS SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR CONSPIRACY TO VIOLATE ARMS EXPORT CONTROL ACT BY EXPORTING SENSORS

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Chinese Nationals Sentenced in New Mexico for Conspiring to Violate Arms Export Control Act

This afternoon, a federal judge in the District of New Mexico sentenced two Chinese nationals for conspiring to violate the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) by scheming to illegally export defense articles with military application to the People’s Republic of China, announced Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin and U.S. Attorney Damon P. Martinez of the District of New Mexico.

Bo Cai, 29, of Nanjing, China, was sentenced to 24 months in prison and his cousin Wentong Cai, 30, of Chifeng, China, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.  Both will be deported after completing their prison sentences.  The two men were charged in three-count superseding indictment with a scheme to illegally export sensors primarily manufactured for sale to the U.S. Department of Defense for use in high-level applications, such as line-of-sight stabilization and precision motion control systems.  The Arms Export Control Act and the ITAR prohibit the export of defense-related materials from the United States without obtaining a license or written approval from the U.S. Department of State.

Bo Cai entered a guilty plea to all three counts of the superseding indictment in July 2014, and Wentong Cai pleaded guilty to Count 3 of the superseding indictment in December 2014.  In entering the guilty pleas, each admitted that from March 2012 to December 2013, they conspired with each other to illegally export sensors from the United States to China without first obtaining the required export license.  Bo Cai admitted that in March 2012, while he was employed by a technology company in China, he embarked on an illegal scheme to smuggle sensors out of the United States to China for one of his customers despite knowledge that the sensors could not be exported without a license and that the United States did not issue licenses to export the sensors to China.  Wentong Cai admitted that while he was in the United States on a student visa, Bo Cai enlisted him to acquire the sensors under the ruse that he planned to use the sensors at Iowa State University where he was a graduate microbiology student.

Court filings indicate that the investigation of this case began in October 2013, when an undercover U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent responded to Wentong Cai’s overtures.  After negotiations by telephone and email, in December 2013, Bo Cai and Wentong Cai traveled to New Mexico, where they obtained a sensor from undercover HSI agents and developed a plan for smuggling the sensor out of the United States to China.  On Dec. 11, 2013, Bo Cai was arrested at an airport in Los Angeles, as he was preparing to board a flight to China, after the sensor was discovered concealed in a computer speaker in his luggage.  Wentong Cai subsequently was arrested on Jan. 22, 2014, in Ames, Iowa.

The HSI Albuquerque, New Mexico, office led the investigation of this case with assistance from the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the Defense Security Service, HSI in Iowa and Los Angeles and the FBI.  Iowa State University cooperated throughout with HSI’s investigation.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dean S. Tuckman and Fred J. Federici of the District of New Mexico prosecuted the case with assistance from Deputy Chief Deborah Curtis and Trial Attorneys David Recker and Brian Fleming of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.  The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Iowa also assisted in the prosecution.

NASA STUDIES INTERATIONS OF POLLUTION AND STORMS

FROM: NASA
NASA Flights Target How Pollution, Storms and Climate Mix

WASHINGTON -- NASA aircraft will take to the skies over the southern United States this summer to investigate how air pollution and natural emissions, which are pushed high into the atmosphere by large storms, affect atmospheric composition and climate.

NASA will conduct its most complex airborne science campaign of the year from Houston's Ellington Field, which is operated by the agency's Johnson Space Center, beginning Aug. 7 and continuing through September. The field campaign draws together coordinated observations from NASA satellites, aircraft and an array of ground sites.

More than 250 scientists, engineers, and flight personnel are participating in the Studies of Emissions, Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) campaign. The project is sponsored by the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Brian Toon of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is SEAC4RS lead scientist.

Aircraft and sensors will probe the atmosphere from top to bottom at the critical time of year when weather systems are strong enough and regional air pollution and natural emissions are prolific enough to pump gases and particles high into the atmosphere. The result is potentially global consequences for Earth's atmosphere and climate.

"In summertime across the United States, emissions from large seasonal fires, metropolitan areas, and vegetation are moved upward by thunderstorms and the North American Monsoon," Toon said. "When these chemicals get into the stratosphere they can affect the whole Earth. They also may influence how thunderstorms behave. With SEAC4RS we hope to better understand how all these things interact."

SEAC4RS will provide new insights into the effects of the gases and tiny aerosol particles in the atmosphere. The mission is targeting two major regional sources of summertime emissions: intense smoke from forest fires in the U.S. West and natural emissions of isoprene, a carbon compound, from forests in the Southeast.

Forest fire smoke can change the properties of clouds. The particles in the smoke can reflect and absorb incoming solar energy, potentially producing a net cooling at the ground and a warming of the atmosphere. The addition of large amounts of chemicals, such as isoprene, can alter the chemical balance of the atmosphere. Some of these chemicals can damage Earth's protective ozone layer.

The mission will use a number of scientific instruments in orbit, in the air, and on the ground to paint a detailed picture of these intertwined atmospheric processes. As a fleet of formation-flying satellites known as NASA's A-Train passes over the region every day, sensors will detect different features of the scene below. NASA's ER-2 high-altitude aircraft will fly into the stratosphere to the edge of space while NASA's DC-8 aircraft will sample the atmosphere below it. A third aircraft from SPEC Inc., of Boulder, Colo., will measure cloud properties.
One benefit of this thorough examination of the region's atmosphere will be more accurate satellite data.

"By using aircraft to collect data from inside the atmosphere, we can compare those measurements with what our satellites see and improve the quality of the data from space," said Hal Maring of the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters.

The SEAC4RS campaign is partly supported by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. NASA scientists involved in the mission come from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.; Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt., Md.; Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.; and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

NASA's Earth Science Project Office at Ames manages the SEAC4RS project. The DC-8 and ER-2 research aircraft are managed by NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center and based at Dryden's Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif