A former Iowa State University graduate student’s role at the university would have made it easier to smuggle military sensors from the United States to China, according to a plea agreement entered into by the man’s cousin, who was also arrested in the crime.
Wentong Cai, previously a graduate student studying microbiology at ISU, was arrested in Ames in January and charged with federal counts of aiding and abetting in the unlawful export of defense articles, aiding and abetting in smuggling, and conspiracy.
He is currently being held in the custody of the U.S. Marshal’s Service.
A jury trial is scheduled for Aug. 18 in New Mexico District Court, but his defense attorneys filed a motion earlier this month to have the trial moved to October, citing more than 15,000 pages of documents and multiple DVDs and CDs of material they need to examine to be ready for trial.
The judge assigned to the case has not yet ruled on the continuance.
Cai’s cousin, Bo Cai, was arrested in Los Angeles in December, and has agreed to plead guilty to the same charges, according to a plea agreement filed last week in New Mexico District Court.
According to the plea agreement, Bo Cai has experience legally exporting sensors from the U.S. to China, and decided together with his cousin to purchase ARS-14 sensors from a manufacturer in Albuquerque, N.M., in order to sell them to a customer in China.
“We agreed that (Wentong) would contact the manufacturer, pretend he was going to use the ARS-14 at Iowa State and then, after he got up to 20 ARS-14s from the manufacturer, we would illegally sneak them out, or smuggle them, to China,” the agreement, which is signed by Bo Cai and his two defense attorneys, says.
Bo Cai works for a Chinese company owned by a family member of his, the document says, and believed that Wentong Cai’s status of living in the U.S. and being a student at ISU “would make it easier for us to commit this crime.”
“We knew the manufacturer would not send ARS-14s to me or my customer in China, but we figured the manufacturer would send (them) to Iowa State, and we could smuggle them to China from there,” the agreement says.
According to the plea agreement, Wentong Cai contacted the manufacturer in March 2012 and continued to communicate with them through email about the sensors.
The cousins made plans to meet with someone they believed to be the manufacturer’s international distributor named Steve, but was actually an undercover agent for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in December 2013. Before visiting Albuquerque, Bo Cai wire-transferred a down payment of $27,170 to the company and told them he wanted to buy three of the sensors, according to the plea agreement.
While they were in Albuquerque, “Steve” gave Bo Cai a computer speaker with an ARS-14 hidden inside, and warned them that “it was illegal to send the ARS-14 to China without an export license and that we could all go to jail if we were caught,” according to the plea agreement.
“(We) knew that it was illegal to try to smuggle the ARS-14 from the United States to China, but we did it anyway because we didn’t think we’d get caught,” the plea agreement said.
The cousins left Albuquerque on Dec. 11, with Wentong Cai flying back to Iowa and Bo Cai flying to Los Angeles to meet a connecting flight to China. While in Los Angeles, Bo Cai’s luggage was searched, the sensor was found and he was arrested.
Under the agreement, Bo Cai will forfeit everything that was confiscated from him when he was arrested, including the $27,000 down payment for the sensors. The agreement also states he will agree to leave the U.S. after completing any sentences.
Court records show the plea deal has not been approved by a judge.
