A Florida court started last week a case against two Chinese who tried to purchase advanced American fighters and UAV´s, writes defense analyst Wendell Minnick in Defense News. An undercover operation thwarted the effort.
Wendell Minnick:
The documents allege that Wenxia “Wency” Man and Xinsheng Zhang attempted to acquire and export to China the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper UAV, the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine used on the F-35 stealth fighter, the P&W F119 engine used on the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, and the General Electric F110 engine used on the F-15 and F-16 fighters.
An undercover Homeland Security Investigations special agent thwarted their effort. The items are restricted for export under US International Traffic in Arms Regulations. China has been on the list since 1990. The undercover operation was begun in 2011, according to documents.
Man was born in China and became a US citizen in 2006. She was arrested Sept. 1, but Zhang remains a “fugitive” and is believed to be in China.
Man was vice president of the family-run AFM Microelectronics Corp. in San Diego. The company made advanced capacitors for export. Her husband, Yingkuang “William” Liang, was not arrested, but allegedly had knowledge of his wife’s activities.
“Liang was not only aware of the illegal conduct in which Man and Zhang were engaging … he also warned her that the individual she was dealing with (HIS Undercover Agent) was probably an undercover agent of the FBI,” the documents read.
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