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HP Accused of Illegal Exportation To Iran

Posted by timothy on from the trade-tends-to-bring-people-together dept.

AdamWeeden writes "According to research done by the Boston Globe, HP has been secretly using a third-party company to sell printers to Iran. This is illegal under a ban instituted in 1995 by then US President Bill Clinton. The third-party company, Redington Gulf, operates out of Dubai and previously stated on their web site that the company began in 1997 with 'a team of five people and the HP supplies as our first product, we started operations as the distributor for Iran,' though now the site has been changed to remove the mention of Iran. Has HP unknowingly been supplying Iran with technology or have they been trying to secretly get by the US government's export restrictions?"

6 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Re:ummm ... printers? by deft · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The military is run very much like any other enterprise; cell phones, fax machines, computers, and -printers-. lots of paperwork. a big part of the military is moving data/information, documenting it, getting it in front of people to make decisions. alot of paying bills, aquiring supplies, etc.

    anything that helps a business run pretty much helps the military run. the better it is, the more efficient the war machine is.

    (although im sure some vets would disagree the paperwork helps anything... haha.. but you get the idea)

    --

    There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
  2. Follow the money by LenE · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Around 1998 I got hired by a company that manufactured medical lab equipment. Just before I started, they got a HUGE order from Iraq, which at the time, was under UN embargo and the scandal-ridden oil-for-food program.

    The type and quantity of equipment that was ordered was ASTOUNDING, and sent alarm bells off through-out my organization. This was an enormous order, which amounted to about 70% of our typical annual production (world-wide) for the specific products. On top of that, there was a second order for spare parts to fully rebuild 2/3 of the original order. The equipment was specifically designed to grow bacterial and viral cultures on a very large scale for research. 60 Minutes had just done an investigative report on Saddam's chief biological weapons expert, who to most western news was only known as "Dr. Germ".

    Our organization was struggling, and we really needed the revenue. To the workers on the floor, it meant that the lay-offs had stopped, for the moment.

    I was dismayed that the organization was not in the position just reject the order on principle. Instead, they submitted the order to Clinton Administration's Commerce Department and set up a contingency plan to sell the equipment through multiple intermediary companies if permission was denied. Our CEO then made a large donation to the Democratic National Committee, and magically the sale was approved and blessed by the Commerce Department as "Humanitarian Medical Equipment", which it clearly was not.

    Many can claim that no WMD's were found in Iraq, but I have a very good insight to the scale of the program that they had put in place. Almost all politicians have a price, and none are as pure as the wind-driven snow. Where there is money to be made, the barriers can be overcome.

    One would think that HP's consumer goods could not be easily adapted to nefarious purposes (beyond counterfeiting), but you never know. Most laser printers do contain processors that are far beyond the capability allowed to pass through the embargo. Desperate people become very resourceful.

    -- Len

    1. Re:Follow the money by LenE · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My conscience is clear and I no longer work for that firm.

      I had to deal with months of sleepless nights, wrestling with that information. The anthrax scare in the immediate period after the 9/11 attacks brought fears of culpability through inaction. Those letters ended up being sent by one of our own deranged scientists.

      Likewise, having friends and children of friends being sent to Iraq, clearly focused for me the tangled web we weave. Has anything you designed, built or coded been used to hurt other people? How about indirectly? What about actions taken for profit motives? Our equipment was designed for beneficial biological research. The actions of our CEO were arguably for the benefit of the shareholders and employees who depended on that order to stay in business. When the actual end use context is applied, the situation looks much uglier and quite scandalous.

      The shocking thing for me about this episode is the amount of stuff that happened "above board". Sure, this company had a back-up plan of using foreign intermediaries. Instead, they went to the Commerce Department. The donation from our CEO showed up on public transparency websites dealing with campaign finance. The extremely close timing between the donation and the commerce department approval is not obviously linked, unless you know to look.

      Transparency did not prevent this transaction, because there aren't enough watch dogs. Who is to say that every export license granted is for exactly what it says it is for? Sure we were sending equipment related to medical research, but there was a known absence of medical research and a known massive biological weapons program in existence at the time in Iraq. The dual-use nature of the equipment should have stopped the order in Commerce, but the right lubrication ($$) and the application of selective omission got the whole deal through.

      We got Dr. Germ and her friend Dr. Anthrax. My gut feeling is that most of the equipment in this transaction was destroyed in the initial invasion, or looted in the aftermath. Either way, the equipment is no longer traceable and the biological weapons program no longer viable.

      -- Len

  3. Re:Yes they have been illegally conspiring by erroneus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wow! I may become a Christian yet! One of my prayers have been answered! It seems Amstar Systems and EFT Datalink are no longer in business!!! Google for either one and visit www.eftdatalink.com to see! The operators of those two entities were of questionable character and everything they did was suspect in my opinion. Good riddance... But I am sure there is yet ANOTHER name for another operation by the same people... look out for Robert "Bob" Farris when doing business with ATMs or the like in Texas or surrounding states.

  4. Re:eh hum.... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't think Iran is anything like Afghanistan or Iraq. It is among the most developed countries in the Middle-East and Central Asia, and definitely the one with the best-educated population.

    FWIW, that's an honor that Iraq was in competition for, back before the embargoes.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  5. Re:eh hum.... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now introducting Al-Dirka Hassan's Muhamdojet 1000! It can print 5 millihectares with a single cartridge of sheeps blood!

    I understand that this is tongue in cheek post, but in practice, I've found that a lost of fellow Westerners don't realize what Iran is - they think it's an authoritarian theocracy (correct), and therefore overly backwards and often lumped together with the likes of Afghanistan and Iraq (not correct). Iran has a population of 70 million people, a rather well developed economy and industry (not just machinery, but advanced stuff like pharma and biotech). Its military industry is strong enough to design and produce pretty much the whole range of military equipment, from assault rifles and tanks to fighter planes and submarines.