Surrey man arrested at Peace Arch crossing for allegedly providing U.S. goods to Pakistan's nuclear program

U.S. officials have arrested a 67-year-old Surrey, B.C. man who allegedly spent 16 years providing restricted U.S. goods and technology to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.

Mohammad Jawaid Aziz, a Canadian and Pakistani citizen, was arrested while attempting to travel from B.C. into Washington state at the Peace Arch border crossing on March 21. Federal prosecutors in the U.S. District Court Western District of Washington say Aziz used his Canadian company, Diversified Technology Services, to obtain banned U.S. goods for groups working with Pakistan’s nuclear, missile and drone programs. The procurement network allegedly occurred from 2003 through March 2019.

Aziz is also known as Jawaid Aziz Siddiqui and Jay Siddiqui, according to prosecutors.

The U.S. Department of Commerce Entity List, a trade restriction list that identifies individuals and entities considered to be adversaries to U.S. national security or foreign policy, includes prohibited Pakistani organizations connected with the country’s military and weapons complex. The restrictions have been in place since Pakistan tested its first nuclear explosive in 1998, according to the indictment. Pakistan is one of nine countries known to possess nuclear weapons.

According to the indictment, Aziz often paid U.S. companies for goods and then received reimbursement payments from restricted Pakistani organizations. Aziz and two unnamed co-conspirators occasionally shipped goods through a Singapore company to conceal where the goods were sent, according to court records.

“In their correspondence and communications with U.S. companies, the defendants and their co-conspirators would sometimes falsely portray that the buyer and end user of the goods was one of their front companies or another shell entity, thereby concealing that the true end user was an organization in Pakistan identified on the Entity List,” the indictment read.

In January 2019, an undercover U.S. agent posing as an employee of a U.S. company that Aziz was doing business with said a shipment was delayed because it was being held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The agent told Aziz the confiscation notice mentioned “smuggling and export contrary to law.” Court records show Aziz asked for the items to be released to the U.S. company.

“They have a commercial application,” Aziz advised the agent, according to court records. “They have cancelled the order now due this [sic] delay. Please keep the items with you once released. We may find another customer.”

Federal prosecutors are charging Aziz with conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act, International Emergency Economic Powers Act and Export Control Reform Act.

Aziz is expected to be extradited to Minnesota.

Aziz’s attorney Cooper Offenbecher did not respond to a request for comment.

Following Aziz’s arrest, the Department of Justice announced on April 1 that U.S. prosecutors in New York laid charges on two Iranian citizens, Hossein Akbari, 63, and Reza Amidi, 62, and an Iranian company, Rah Roshd Company, for allegedly procuring U.S. technology for Iranian drone manufacturing.