Ehab Ali Ashoor, 49, was sentenced to four years and three months in federal prison after he was convicted at trial in January, federal authorities said Thursday.
Ashoor bought counterfeit Cisco equipment from an online vendor in China intending to sell it to the Marine Corps in Iraq for transmitting troop movements, relaying intelligence and maintaining security for a military base west of Fallujah, according to evidence produced at Ashoor's trial.
The contract between Ashoor's company, CDS Federal Inc., and the Marine Corps was to provide 200 Cisco gigabit interface converters, or GBICs, for US military use in their computer network at the Marine Base in Al-Taqaddum, Iraq, some 65 km west of Fallujah.
The contract clearly stated that the GBICs had to be genuine Cisco products and not an imitation brand that claimed the same specifications, cautioning that, "not only is this a quality issue it is a possible security issue."
But Ashoor purchased the 200 GBICs from a Hong Kong vendor off eBay for approximately $25 each, less than 5 percent of the market price for genuine Cisco GBICs. He told the Hong Kong contact that he wanted the GBICs to be in imitation Cisco packaging.
Ashoor then turned these around and sold them to the Marines at $595 each per GBIC, for a total contract price of $119,000.
"Ashoor's attempt to fulfill his contractual obligations to the US Marine Corps through the use of counterfeit Cisco computer parts could have placed our men and women in uniform at risk had he been able to successfully deliver those counterfeit goods. Thanks to the efforts of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in Illinois, Ashoor did not succeed," US attorney José Angel Moreno said.
The shoddy computer parts were never used as customs agents noticed something odd with the shipment and referred it to investigators, and the Marine Corps stockpiled the parts until the inquiry was finished.
Ashoor is not the first to be punished for this kind of offense. Last January, in California, a 33-year-old Chinese resident Yongcai Li was sent to prison for 30 months and told to pay Cisco $790,683.
The federal crackdown on shady businesses that supply shoddy computer goods to the military and federal agencies is called Operation Network Raider, and has now led to 30 felony convictions.
It has also resulted in over 700 seizures of counterfeit Cisco network hardware and labels, the estimated retail value of which is over $143 million.
"Trafficking in counterfeit computer components is a problem that spans the globe and impacts most, if not all, major network equipment manufacturers," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the criminal division at the US Department of Justice told reporters Thursday.
Next month, two Houston brothers, Michael and Richard Edman, are scheduled to be sentenced after pleading guilty to selling computer network cards to the Marine Corps, Air Force, FBI, Federal Aviation Administration and Energy Department, among other agencies.
Judge David Hittner, who sentenced Ashoor to 51 months in prison, imposed the maximum term recommended by federal prosecutors on Thursday. Ashoor sat slumped in his chair as the judge read the sentence.
When the prosecutor pointed out that Ashoor had shown disregard for the men and women serving in Iraq, the judge quipped: "Well, they're obviously not his men and women."
"See that he is deported," Judge Hittner said, raising his voice in anger after handing down the sentence.
Ashoor's wife, Nargus Khan, 40, said they had lived in the United States for 20 years and had two children, but had remained citizens of Saudi Arabia.
