US: Chinese national gets prison for plotting to export American military boat engines

A Chinese national has been sentenced to three years and six months in US federal prison for trying to illegally export US military boat engines to China, the Justice Department said on Friday.

Ge Songtao, who was indicted in 2019 along with a Jacksonville-based U.S. Navy officer and two people working for his company, pleaded guilty in November.

Ge has been convicted for submitting "false export information through the federal government's Automated Export System and to export maritime raiding craft and engines to China fraudulently and attempting to export that equipment fraudulently in violation of U.S. law."

According to a statement by Justice Department, the court has also ordered Songtao to forfeit USD 114,834.27, the amount caused to be wired to a U.S. manufacturer to purchase the raiding craft and engines.

According to court documents, Ge was the chairman of Shanghai Breeze Technology Co. Ltd., a company headquartered in Shanghai, China.

Beginning in 2018, Ge was interested in identifying a source of supply of U.S.-manufactured combat rubber raiding craft equipped with engines that could operate using gasoline, diesel fuel or jet fuel.

These vessels and multi-fuel engines are used by the U.S. military and can be operated after being launched from a submerged submarine or dropped into the ocean by an aircraft. No comparable engine is manufactured in China.

( With inputs from ANI )

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