A Taiwanese national, Pen Yu, 51, was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. As part of his sentence, the court also entered an order of forfeiture in the amount of $100,000, the proceeds of the wire fraud.
Yu pleaded guilty on May 2. Co-conspirator Gregory Muñoz pleaded guilty on May 9, and co-conspirator Jonathan Thyng pleaded guilty on July 23.
According to court documents, beginning in at least July 2016 and continuing through at least May 2023, Yu ordered biochemical products from MilliporeSigma, a subsidiary of multinational science and technology company Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, with help from Muñoz, a MilliporeSigma salesperson, by falsely representing that Yu was affiliated with a biology research lab at a large Florida university. This fictitious affiliation led MilliporeSigma to provide Yu over $4.9 million worth of discounts and other benefits, such as free overnight shipping, not available to the public. Yu gave Muñoz thousands of dollars in gift cards for facilitating these fraudulent discounted orders. When the products arrived at the university stockroom, a stockroom employee diverted the products to Yu, who repackaged them and shipped them to China. To avoid scrutiny, Yu made false statements about the value and contents of these shipments in export documents.
This scheme continued until MilliporeSigma compliance personnel identified certain orders as suspicious, prompting the company to retain outside counsel who voluntarily disclosed the misconduct to the Department of Justice’s National Security Division only a week later. MilliporeSigma made the disclosure well before its counsel had completed their investigation and understood the full nature and extent of the scheme. MilliporeSigma offered exceptional cooperation to the prosecution team, including by proactively identifying and producing documents to the Department that established probable cause to search residences and electronic devices of culpable individuals. MilliporeSigma’s cooperation allowed investigators to quickly identify the individuals responsible for the scheme, including Yu, Muñoz and Thyng, and secure their felony guilty pleas.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg for the Middle District of Florida, Special Agent in Charge John Johnson for the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry Security (BIS) Miami Field Office and Colonel Kelly Frushour of the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group.
The Defense Criminal Investigative Service, BIS and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case.
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