International Trade Law News

Bernard Smith, the President and part owner of Stealth Components, Inc. (www.stealthcomponents.com), located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was indicted on January 13, 2005 on one count of conspiracy and six counts of making false statements in connection with a scheme to avoid paying over $385,000 in U.S. antidumping duties.

According to the indictment, Stealth Components, Inc., is in the business of purchasing electronic components that it imports from overseas countries for resale in the U.S. The indictment claims that from November 1998 through May 2000, Smith and others participated in a scheme to defraud U.S. Customs in order to minimize the payment of antidumping duties that Stealth was required to make on imported Korean dynamic random access memory semiconductors ("DRAMs"). The alleged scheme involved the presentation of false and fraudulent invoices to U.S. Customs that undervalued the purchase price and falsely described the Korean DRAMs that Stealth imported in order to lessen the cash deposit amount for antidumping duties that Stealth was required to submit to U.S. Customs.

According to the indictment, Smith perpetrated this scheme by directing foreign suppliers to prepare fraudulent invoices and other false entry documents that would be presented to U.S. Customs at the time of entry for each shipment of DRAMs that Stealth imported. Over the course of this scheme, it is alleged that Smith avoided the total payment of over $385,000 to Customs in antidumping duties that Stealth was required to deposit on shipments of Korean DRAMs.

If convicted, Smith faces a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison on the conspiracy charge, and 2 years in prison on each of the six false statements charges.