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LOS ANGELES -- An Azusa, Calif.,-based company was ordered Thursday to pay a $75,000 fine for attempting to export anti-aircraft missile parts to China without the required license. Mexpar International, which is owned by Ahmad Nahardani of Encino and Gabriela De Brea of Alta Loma, was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz. The company was charged along with Nahardani, 56, and De Brea, 62, after an investigation in which the two sold the parts to an undercover operative and tried to ship the items to China on eight occasions during 1999 and 2000, authorities said. Last fall,...

The seven defendants were charged at the end of a five-year investigation into the illegal shipping of sensitive weapons, including parts used in surface-to-air missiles and fighter aircraft, prosecutors revealed. All seven, including two people of Chinese origin, were based in the Los Angeles area and allegedly attempted to export parts for weapons such as the AIM-9 "Sidewinder" heat-seeking anti-aircraft missile to China. "The investigation ... was launched in 1998 to stem the illegal flow of military and defense equipment in and out of the United States," Assistant United States Attorney Mary Carter Andrues said in a statement. The...

Seven inculpations in a traffic of missiles between the United States and China Put in line 28/02/2003 to 07:23 Four people and three companies were accused to have exported illegally or tried to export towards China of the American missiles and the spare parts of American fighters, announced Thursday the American authorities. The suspects, including two people of Chinese extraction, and the companies were accused after a five years investigation into illegal exports of sensitive weapons, in particular of the parts used for the missiles ground-air and of the hunters, the investigators indicated. They had in particular tried to...