In a stunning afternoon raid yesterday, the headquarters of Aventura Technologies, Inc. in Commack, New York, six employees were arrested and later arraigned before a United States Magistrate on a criminal complaint charging the surveillance and security equipment company with selling Chinese-made equipment with known cybersecurity vulnerability to government and private customers while falsely representing that the equipment was made in the United States and concealing that the products were manufactured in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Additional charges of defrauding the U.S. government and money laundering were also filed against four of the defendants.
This case highlights the growing concern among U.S. national security officials of possible cybersecurity breaches and data incursions from Chinese security and telecommunication equipment manufacturers. According to Justice Department information, more than 80 percent of economic-espionage cases brought by federal prosecutors have involved China since 2012.
Individual defendants charged in the complaint are Jack Cabasso, Aventura’s Managing Director, and de facto owner and operator; Frances Cabasso, his wife and Aventura’s purported owner and Chief Executive Officer; senior executives Jonathan Lasker, Christine Lavonne Lazarus and Eduard Matulik; current employee Wayne Marino; and recently retired employee Alan Schwartz.
“As alleged, the defendants falsely claimed for years that their surveillance and security equipment was manufactured on Long Island, padding their pockets with money from lucrative contracts without regard for the risk to our country’s national security posed by secretly peddling made-in-China electronics with known cyber vulnerabilities,” stated Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “With today’s arrests, the defendants’ brazen deceptions and fraud schemes have been exposed, and they will face serious consequences for slapping phony ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ labels on products that our armed forces and other sensitive gove ..
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