U.S. Charges Chinese National with Illegal Nuclear Related Exports

A Chinese national was charged with illegally exporting to China sensors made in the U.S. and used to produce weapons grade uranium, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday.

As reported by Lily Kuo of Reuters, Qiang Hu, a sales manager for a Chinese subsidiary of MKS Instruments, was arrested at his hotel in North Andover, Mass., and charged with conspiracy to violate U.S. export laws. He allegedly allowed thousands of pressure measuring sensors, known as pressure transducers, to be exported from the United States to unauthorized users in China, the department said.

Pressure transducers are export controlled because they are used in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium and produce weapons grade uranium, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Hu was identified as the sales manager at MKS Instruments Shanghai Ltd, the Shanghai branch of MKS Instruments Inc. of Andover, Mass., which supplies manufacturing equipment. Hu is accused of conspiring with others since 2007 to export pressure transducers from the United States to unauthorized end-users either by using export licenses issued to MKS customers and or through export licenses obtained in the name of a front company.