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I will add my experience. This has been going on for decades. My first job in aviation 40 years ago…..in a nutshell, a commercial airline facility ( C checks overhaul, B727 , B737 aircraft), would have to replace primary flt controls, fuel controls , etc…, they commonly scrapped assemblies, or rebuild them in back shops- then per FAA issue out 8130 servicable tags, tightly monitored, records must be kept for years…well two inspectors would red tag, scrap parts, they went supposedly to the junk yards…they somehow got ahold of them, issued new 8130’s , then resold them on the part’s market. The buyers ( airlines) would by these “ serviceable “ parts and install them.

All legal, until Southwest bought an L1 door, ( $250,000 back then), traced the 8130 tag and found out the door had been scrapped two years ago ( by serial number/ part number). The inspectors had started a “ repair company” on paper, were buying up scrapped parts and issuing out bogus 8130’s. Bam! They were caught, got five years in prison.

Another incident, a major airline was buying AN/ MS fittings, hoses from a major parts supplier. The packaging was marked correctly, but the packing was cheap. One day MS bolts were breaking, stripping, an analysis of the metal showed it was common steel, low grade metalurgically….the supplier traced the bolts to a Chinese manufacturing company.

Thanks for sharing.

How scary!

Probably all cheap China scrap being sold, by these scammers, now.

Another incident, a major airline was buying AN/ MS fittings, hoses from a major parts supplier. The packaging was marked correctly, but the packing was cheap. One day MS bolts were breaking, stripping, an analysis of the metal showed it was common steel, low grade metalurgically….the supplier traced the bolts to a Chinese manufacturing company.

I have a friend in the fastener business— industrial, but not aviation, or nuclear. Back when the fake fastener scandals hit in the 1990s, he said that nine times out of ten the root problem was not Chinese manufacturers mismarking cheap bolts as expensive to swindle American bolt importers, but American bolt importers getting Chinese manufacturers to mismark cheap bolts as expensive, so that the American bolt importers could swindle their own customers. Certainly the Chinese manufacturers knew what was what, but they were, nine times out of ten, delivering exactly the product their American importer clients wanted.