Pinoy trader fined $13,000 for selling unmanned aerial vehicle

CHICAGO – A Filipino businessman has been placed under house arrest and fined $13,000 after pleading guilty to one of three counts of “willfully conspiring” with others to sell an unmanned aerial vehicle or drone on eBay.

Henson Chua, a vendor of radios and communications equipment in Quezon City, was trying to supplement his income by buying and selling goods online through eBay before his arrest in a sting operation conducted online by agents of the US Homeland Security for trying to sell a Raven drone in two parts each for $6,500.

Chua, according to court documents provided by Amy Filjones, public affairs staff of the US Attorney’s office of Middle District of Florida in Tampa, was sentenced by US District Judge James Moody Jr. to “time served as to count one of the indictment,” three years of supervised release, $13,000 fine and a special assessment fee of $100. Chua was jailed for seven weeks and later placed on house arrest with a monitoring device in his ankle.

Upon his arrival in the US on Feb. 10 this year, Chua was arrested and charged with three counts of “knowingly and willfully conspiring with others to import into the US and export from the US a defense article without first obtaining a license or other authorization from the US Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls.”

One count carries maximum penalties of 20 years of imprisonment and a fine of $1 million.

Seized from Chua were a Sony Vaio laptop computer and a Nokia E90 phone, which both “contained references to communications between the defendant and UC officers and others, we well as other evidence related to this investigation.”

Chua’s lawyer William Jung said that what his client had tried to sell “were inoperable, harmless abandoned parts (a nose cone with camera, part of a fuselage, and one wing that has no control unit), of a non-weapon,” which “posed little or no risk to harming the security or foreign policy interest of the United States.” 

He said even “UAV hobbyists may purchase a Raven kit online and make their own non-official, operational Raven for their hobby enthusiasm.” Chua came to the US on a valid non-immigrant visa, purportedly to visit his wife, who is an American citizen.

A Raven surveillance drone is unarmed but is equipped with a camera. It has a 54 inches wingspan, hand-launched with a flight time of 70 minutes.

Lighter sentence

Assistant US Attorney Sara Sweeney agreed to “downward departure from sentencing” after Chua agreed to “cooperate fully with the United States in the prosecution of other persons” and to extend “substantial assistance” to investigators.

It was on May 6, 2010 when the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the Homeland Security was informed by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa of a UAV listed on eBay.com identified as “Raven, a small reconnaissance-type aircraft that has advanced cameras in its nose cone” that sells for $13,000.

Special HIS Agent Nicholas Anderson and another agent in California decided to investigate after seeing on separate occasions the eBay entry. The California agent pretended to be a buyer for a Russian client.

When Chua was told that he needed an authorization from the US State Department to sell the Raven, Chua still took the chance to sell the drone in two parts for a total of $13,000. – Joseph Lariosa, Journal Group Link International