FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 6, 2009
WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/MA
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CUSTOMS BROKER PLEADS GUILTY TO DEFRAUDING MASSACHUSETTS COMPANY
BOSTON, MA - A Long Island man pled guilty today in federal court with defrauding a Massachusetts distributor of medical equipment through the use of bogus customs forms.
Acting United States Attorney Michael K. Loucks and Bruce M. Foucart, Special Agent in Charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement - Boston Field Office, announced today that GREGORY MANUELIAN, age 49, of Manhasset, New York, pled guilty to eight counts of wire fraud and four counts of using forged customs documents. As alleged in the Indictment, MANUELIAN submitted invoices and customs documents to his client, B-K Medical Systems, a Danish subsidiary of Massachusetts-based Analogic Corporation, that fraudulently indicated that the client owed customs duties on goods that were in fact duty free. MANUELIAN operated a customs brokerage in Jamaica, New York.
Beginning in 1980, Marquis Clearance served as a customs broker for B-K’s imports, most of which entered the United States through the Port of Newark, New Jersey. When goods entered in the United States, MANUELIAN, on behalf of Marquis Clearance, ordinarily paid duties and routine charges on the goods, if any, and then faxed, from his office in New York to B-K’s facility in Massachusetts, the invoices that listed the goods and the duties Marquis Clearance pre-paid on B-K's behalf. Based on the information in the invoice, B-K reimbursed Marquis Clearance for the duties and paid the fee for its brokerage services by wiring funds to Marquis Clearance. In 1996, the United States Department of Commerce began to phase out the duties on the types of medical equipment exported by B-K from Denmark to the United States, such that by 1999, the goods were duty free.
Despite the phase out of the duties, MANUELIAN continued to represent to B-K that he was paying duties on B-K's behalf for the medical equipment it was importing, when in fact he paid no such duties. MANUELIAN made these misrepresentations in invoices he submitted to B-K, which reflected that Marquis Clearance had paid duties on goods that were in fact duty free and for which Marquis Clearance had paid no duty. To create legitimacy for each invoice, MANUELIAN mailed to B-K bogus customs forms which showed a duty owed on the medical equipment, usually equal to 5.3% of their import value. MANUELIAN did not submit the bogus Customs Forms 7501 to CBP, but instead, for each importation, MANUELIAN submitted a paperless entry to CBP that, unlike the Customs Form 7501 he mailed to B-K, accurately indicating that the medical equipment was duty free.
Through these misrepresentations, MANUELIAN repeatedly induced B-K to reimburse Marquis Clearance for duties that Marquis Clearance never actually paid, in amounts ranging from $1000 to $9000. Over the course of his scheme, MANUELIAN submitted over three hundred fraudulent invoices to B-K, which induced B-K to pay a total of over $1.1 million to Marquis Clearance.
MANUELIAN is scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton on February 17, 2010.
The case was investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan F. Mitchell.
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