Aluminum imports: US condemns 6 companies for evading tariffs

Six Southern California companies were convicted of conspiring to avoid paying $ 1.8 billion in tariffs on aluminum imports from China, the the Justice Department reported.

The case is linked to Chinese businessman Liu Zhongtian and the rising value of China Zhongwang Holdings, Asia’s largest aluminum extrusion manufacturer.

In effect, these companies conspired to defraud investors by inflating the value of the company through simulated sales of aluminum in the United States.

A federal jury found those six corporate entities guilty of participating in a broad conspiracy to defraud the United States through a wire and customs fraud scheme in which large quantities of aluminum, disguised as «pallets», were «sold» to fraudulently inflate the income of a China-based company and mislead investors around the world.

What is a pallet? Pallet, pallet, pallet or pallet are several terms to refer to this support or platform of boards to stack the load. The pallets are rigid frames on which the merchandise is placed, distributed evenly in height and area that will cover the pallet. The pallets, and consequently the load, will be transported from one side of the rack or the warehouse to the other by means of forklift trucks or pallet trucks.

Aluminum imports

The jury determined that the following two aluminum companies and four warehousing companies, all related to each other, were guilty of one count of conspiracy, nine counts of wire fraud, and seven counts of passing false and fraudulent documents through customs:

• Perfectus Aluminum Inc., an Ontario-based company.
• Perfectus Aluminum Acquisitions LLC, a Perfectus Aluminum subsidiary formed in 2014 to oversee several companies that received aluminum pallets shipped to the United States after tariffs were imposed on Chinese aluminum in 2011.
• Scuderia Development LLC, which owns a warehouse in Riverside.
• 1001 Doubleday LLC, which owns a warehouse in Ontario.
• Von Karman – Main Street LLC, which owns a warehouse in Irvine.
• 10681 Production Avenue LLC, which owns a warehouse in Fontana.

Also the two Perfectus companies were found guilty of seven additional charges of international promotional money laundering.

According to the evidence presented in the nine-day trial, China Zhongwang Holdings Ltd., the largest Asian manufacturer of aluminum extrusions, Zhongtian Liu, former president and president of the company, several individual defendants and the corporate defendants found guilty lied to the Office Customs and Border Protection to avoid paying the United States $ 1.8 billion in anti-dumping and countervailing duties (AD / CVD) that were imposed in 2011 on certain types of extruded aluminum imported into the United States from China.