The U.S. Justice Department released the below information on October 24, 2024:
Yuksel
Senbol, 36, of Orlando, Florida, was sentenced today to 15 months in prison for
conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire
fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, conspiracy to
violate the Export Control Reform Act, violating the Export Control Reform Act,
and violating the Arms Export Control Act. As part of her sentence, the court
also entered an order of forfeiture in the amount of $275,430.90, the proceeds
of Senbol’s fraud and money laundering scheme. Senbol entered pleaded guilty on
May 7.
According to facts taken from public filings, beginning in
approximately April 2019, Senbol operated a front company in the Middle
District of Florida called Mason Engineering Parts LLC. She used this front
company to assist her co-conspirators, Mehmet Ozcan and Onur Simsek, to
fraudulently procure contracts to supply critical military components to the
Department of Defense. These components were intended for use in the Navy
Nimitz and Ford Class Aircraft Carriers, Navy Submarines, Marine Corps Armored
Vehicles, and Army M-60 Series Tank and Abrahams Battle Tanks, among other
weapons systems.
To fraudulently procure the government contracts, Senbol and her
co-conspirators falsely represented to the U.S. government and U.S. military
contractors that Mason Engineering Parts LLC was a vetted and qualified
manufacturer of military components, when in fact, the parts were being
manufactured by Ozcan and Simsek in Turkey. As Senbol knew, Simsek’s
involvement had to be concealed from the U.S. government because he had been
debarred from contracting with the U.S. government after being convicted of a
virtually identical scheme in the Southern District of Florida.
In order to enable Ozcan and Simsek to manufacture the
components in Turkey, Senbol assisted them in obtaining sensitive,
export-controlled drawings of critical U.S. military technology. Using software
that allowed Ozcan to remotely control her computer — and thus evade security
restrictions that limited access to these sensitive military drawings to
computers within the United States — Senbol knowingly facilitated the illegal
export of these drawings. She did so despite having executed numerous agreements
promising to safeguard the drawings from unlawful access or export, and in
spite of the clear warnings on the face of each drawing that it could not be
exported without obtaining a license.
Once Ozcan and Simsek manufactured the components in Turkey,
they shipped them to Senbol, who repackaged them — making sure to remove any
reference to their Turkish origin. The conspirators then lied about the origin
of the parts to the U.S. government and a U.S. government contractor to receive
payment for the parts. Senbol then laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars
in criminal proceeds back to Turkey through international wire transfers.
This scheme continued until uncovered and disrupted by federal
investigators. Parts supplied by Senbol were tested by the U.S. military and
were determined not to conform with product specifications. Many of the
components supplied to the U.S. military by Senbol were “critical application
items,” meaning that failure of these components would have potentially
rendered the end system inoperable.
Alleged co-conspirators Mehmet Ozcan and Onur Simsek are
fugitives.
The General Services Administration, Office of Inspector
General; Defense Criminal Investigative Service; Department of Commerce, Bureau
of Industry and Security; Air Force Office of Special Investigations; FBI;
Homeland Security Investigations; and Department of State, Directorate of
Defense Trade Controls are investigating the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel J. Marcet and Lindsey Schmidt for the Middle District of Florida and Trial Attorney Stephen Marzen of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Section are prosecuting the case.
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