The Leading Journal for the Tyre Recycling Sector

The Leading Journal for the Tyre Recycling Sector

Grand Jury Indictment for Bay Area Traders

An indictment by a California Grand Jury has seen a case brought against five men accused of a tax fraud surrounding the import and export of plastics and used tyres.

California Grand Jury Indictment for Five Tyre Traders

The indictment accuses the five men of cheating the government out of $40 million by shipping used tyres overseas that were falsely labelled as high tariff plastics and collecting refunds.

The gang used a Bay Area tyre company to swindle the federal government by shipping boatloads of used tyres overseas that were falsely labelled as high-tariff plastics and collecting refunds for the tariffs, federal prosecutors claimed.

A grand jury indictment, filed in San Francisco on Aug. 12 and unsealed on the 25th August, accused the five of fraud, money-laundering and conspiracy, in a scheme that ran from November 2014 to September 2019.

The defendants are Dale Behm, 75, of Shell Knob, Mo.; Yong Heng Liang, also known as Colin Liang, 34, of Daly City; Joshua Stanka, 41, of Katy, Texas; Joshua Clark, 38, of Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas; and Michael Choy, 47, of Etibocoke, Ontario, Canada.

The alleged plot involved refunds known as “drawbacks.” Under federal law, an importer who pays tariffs on goods is entitled to recover as much as 99% of those sums from the government by exporting goods of the same quality and tariff status, within 180 days.

Prosecutors said the men used a San Francisco plastics importer, Pacific Rim Traders, to import large amounts of plastics from its parent company in China that was used to make bottles and other products.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle