The Indian owner of an international electronics company on Thursday pleaded guilty to conspiracy to illegally export restricted components from the US to Indian government entities involved in space programme and production of missiles and fighter jets.
Parthasarathy Sudarsan, 47, CEO of Cirrus Electronics, entered his guilty plea in US District Court for the District of Columbia to the felony charge of conspiracy to violate various laws, including Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
A resident of South Carolina, Sudarshan supplied microprocessors and other electronic components to Indian agencies including the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and Bharat Dynamics Ltd. (BDL), which is involved in development and production of ballistic missiles, between 2002 and 2006, the US Department of Justice claimed.
"Both VSSC and BDL are on the Department of Commerce's Entity List and exports of US-origin commodities to these entities are restricted and require prior authorisation in the form of a license from the Department of Commerce," the Department said.
Sentencing is scheduled for June 16. Sudarshan faces a maximum punishment of five years in prison, a USD250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
{{/usCountry}}Sentencing is scheduled for June 16. Sudarshan faces a maximum punishment of five years in prison, a USD250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
{{/usCountry}}Cirrus has offices in Simpsonville, South Carolina, Singapore and Bangalore, India.
The court documents accuse Sudarshan and others at Cirrus of providing the US companies with fraudulent certificates that claimed that the end-users of these electrical components were non-restricted entities in India, when, in fact, the items were for VSSC.