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BIS Says Kenyan Business, Directors Deceived US Companies About Exports to Russia

The Bureau of Industry and Security this week revoked the export privileges of a Kenya-based company and two people for trying to illegally export airplane parts from the U.S. to Russia, including by lying to American freight forwarders and other businesses about where the parts would be sent. It also warned that the company and people are continuing to try to illegally buy export controlled parts from American businesses.

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The temporary denial order targets Nairobi-based ExHigh Air Space Ltd.; the company’s general director Geoffrey Chune Omariba; and the company’s owner Nader Ali Saboori Haghighi, an Iranian national living in Serbia. BIS said they worked since July 2022 to ship U.S. export controlled parts to restricted parties in Russia and to illegally send parts to U.S. companies for repair and return to Russian airline Ural Airlines, which has been subject to a BIS denial order since October 2022.

They underreported the values of their exports, falsely reported exports as not requiring licenses, and falsely reported the final destination of those exports, BIS said. They also “repeatedly provided falsified documents to U.S. freight forwarders to avoid” electronic export information filing requirements or caused forwarders to file false EEI.

“Respondents have thus demonstrated a willingness to openly deceive U.S. businesses and [Office of Export Enforcement] investigators through the provision of false or misleading information on BIS export license applications and in routed export transactions,” the denial order said. “Even after repeated contacts and multiple seizures from OEE conducted with the assistance of other federal law enforcement, Respondents’ behavior has continued.”

The order bars ExHigh, Chune and Haghighi from participating in transactions with items subject to the Export Administration Regulations.

BIS said ExHigh began trying to illegally export parts to Russia, including items designated under Export Control Classification Numbers 9A991 and 7A103, about five months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The agency specifically said ExHigh submitted license applications to BIS for exports of 7A103 inertial reference units, telling the agency they would be sent to Kenya when they were actually sent to Belgrade, Serbia, before being delivered to Russia. BIS said ExHigh was able to hide the actual destination from U.S.-based freight forwarders by giving them “false and misleading” EEI.

BIS said it obtained “correspondence” between ExHigh and an employee at Ural Airlines that showed that Chune and Haghighi used ExHigh to deliver to Ural an inertial reference unit, which is a sensor that provides attitude, velocity and navigation information to an aircraft. ExHigh delivered multiple shipments of those U.S.-sourced sensors to Ural at Russia’s Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, the denial order said, which houses one of Ural’s aircraft line maintenance stations.

ExHigh also allegedly tried to repair items for Ural, including by sending them back to the U.S. for maintenance. In one instance, BIS said ExHigh sent an unnamed American company an EECN 9A991 “engine control unit” that needed repair along with letters from Chune that said the unit was owned by an unnamed airline. After the U.S. company sent the unit to a manufacturer for repair, the manufacturer “traced” the unit and discovered it was originally sold to Ural and installed on an A321 NEO plane with a tail number matching a Ural aircraft, BIS said.

The unnamed airline “confirmed” that the unit wasn’t theirs and that Chune’s letters saying otherwise were “fraudulent,” BIS said. The agency’s Office of Export Enforcement seized the item in October 2023.

OEE discovered another instance that year of ExHigh shipping an item to a U.S. company for repair. ExHigh told the company that the item, an inertial reference unit, belonged to a Kenyan airline. But BIS said it couldn’t find any EEI filed for the item, which showed that it “had been previously smuggled out of the United States.”

BIS said the U.S. company “confronted” ExHigh about this, and Chune provided a report -- purportedly belonging to a Kenyan airline -- that showed the item was in need of repair because of mechanical failure. “OEE determined that this failure report was falsified by Haghighi and was in fact printed and modified from a Russian database belonging to Ural,” the denial order said. The agency said the unit was likely used by Ural, and ExHigh “took steps to conceal this fact from” the U.S. company to “evade detection by U.S law enforcement.”

BIS said ExHigh returned another unit to the U.S. for repair in October 2023, and the U.S. manufacturer again traced the serial number and determined it belonged to a Ural aircraft. FBI and OEE agents seized the item after obtaining a warrant, BIS said.

The agency said it has evidence that ExHigh is continuing to try to illegally export items from the U.S. or take other steps to violate U.S. export laws. The company “continues to place orders” for export-controlled items, including inertial reference units, with companies throughout the U.S., BIS said, and some of those companies have been in touch with OEE about “red flags that have arisen” involving those purchase orders.

ExHigh tried to buy inertial reference units from a Texas company in August and from a company in Iowa as recently as January, BIS said. ExHigh was listed as the ultimate consignee for the purchase order involving the Iowa company, and OEE said it discovered that the item “was falsely declared as ECCN 9A991 and declared as not requiring a license for export.” The exporter said the item should’ve been classified as ECCN 7A103.

The denial order, in place for 180 days from March 31, “will assist in preventing an imminent violation” of the Export Administration Regulations “relating to Respondents’ continued attempts to procure and divert controlled items from U.S. companies and evade the requirements of the Regulations,” BIS said.