A Florida defense contractor faces a prison sentence after being found guilty of multiple charges, including an attempt to defraud the United States.
The person in question, Yuksel Senbol, was sentenced for a lengthy list of serious offenses against the nation. The charges included “conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act, and violating the Arms Export Control Act.”
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel J. Marcet and Lindsey Schmidt for the Middle District of Florida and Trial Attorney Stephen Marzen of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Section are prosecuting the case.
Defense contractor faces financial penalties and jail time for fraud
The public filings of the case, prosecuted by Marcet, Schmidt, and Marzen, showed that Senbol rana shell company, based in the Middle District of Florida, Mason Engineering Parts LLC.
Her scheme involved Mehmet Ozcan and Onur Simsek, who were later named co-conspirators, to fraudulently procure contracts to supply critical military components to the Department of Defense. Both individuals are still at large and are fugitives at the time of writing.
“Navy Nimitz and Ford Class Aircraft Carriers, Navy Submarines, Marine Corps Armored Vehicles, and Army M-60 Series Tank and Abrahams Battle Tanks, among other weapons systems,” were the kind of vital military kit that needed those illicitly procured components, according to the Justice Department.
Ozcan and Simsek reportedly manufactured the components from Turkey, while Senbol masqueraded Mason Engineering Parts LLC as a legitimate enterprise. She also put the company forward and presented the entity to the U.S. government and U.S. military contractors. Mason Engineering Parts LLC was a vetted and qualified manufacturer of military components to the untrained eye, thanks to Senbol’s part.
According to the report, Simsek had been “debarred from contracting with the U.S. government after being convicted of a virtually identical scheme in the Southern District of Florida,” so his part was further hidden from the contracts.
The cabal also exported and accessed critical and sensitive military drawings via software connected to computers within the United States. Senbol knowingly “facilitated the illegal export of these drawings. She did so despite having executed numerous agreements promising to safeguard the drawings from unlawful access or export, and in spite of the clear warnings on the face of each drawing that it could not be exported without obtaining a license.”
The conspirators then lied to the U.S. government and a U.S. government contractor about the parts’ origin to receive payment for them. Senbol then laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars in criminal proceeds back to Turkey through international wire transfer,” said the Justice Department report.
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