The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries -- including Iran and China -- who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions.
The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.
State Metal Industries, a Camden, New Jersey, company convicted in June of violating export laws over a shipment of AIM-7 Sparrow missile guidance parts it bought from Pentagon surplus in 2003 and sold to an entity partly owned by the Chinese government. The company pleaded guilty to an export violation, was fined $250,000 and placed on probation for three years. Customs and Border Protection inspectors seized the parts -- nearly 200 pieces of the guidance system for the Sparrow missile system -- while inspecting cargo at a New Jersey port.
A California company, All Ports, shipped hundreds of containers of U.S. military technology to China between 1994 and 1999, much of it acquired in Pentagon surplus sales, court documents show. Customs agents discovered the sales in May 1999 when All Ports tried to ship to China components for guided missiles, bombs, the B-1 bomber and underwater mines. The company and its owners were convicted in 2000; an appeals court upheld the conviction in 2002.
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