The chief executive officer of Global Metallurgy, LLC, a company based in New York, Erdal Kuyumcu, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in connection with the export of specialty metals from the United States to Iran.
Today’s plea proceeding took place before Chief United States District Judge Dora Irizarry.
The guilty plea was announced by Robert Capers, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and John Carlin, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
At sentencing, Kuyumcu faces up to 20 years in prison a $1 million fine.
As detailed in the criminal information to which he pleaded guilty and in related court filings, Kuyumcu, a United States citizen, conspired to export from the United States to Iran a metallic powder composed of cobalt and nickel without having obtained the required license from the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
"The metallic powder can be used to coat gas turbine components, such as turbine blades, and can also be used in aerospace, missile production, and nuclear applications," TASS reports.
Kuyumcu and others conspired to obtain over one thousand pounds of the metallic powder from a US-based supplier for export to Iran. To hide the true destination of the goods from the US supplier, Kuyumcu and a co-conspirator arranged for the metallic powder to be shipped first to Turkey and then to Iran.
