Posted on 12/25/2019 3:55:16 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A 32-year-old man was found guilty after he reportedly purchased Chinese parts for a NASA space launch project and tried to cover it up.
Seongchan “Steven” Yun of Redondo Beach, California was charged with providing a false document to a federal agency and now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison, according to the United States Department of Justice.
Yun worked for the CBOL Corporation which provides parts and materials to the aerospace industry, including NASA.
Yun was responsible for a contract that would provide stainless steel tubing to carry rocket fuel in support of NASA’s Space Launch System/Orion project at Kennedy Space Center.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
PING!
“” “” Seongchan “Steven” Yun “” “”
I am shocked!
SHOCKED, I tell ya!
Having worked in this industry, there are bribes that Chinese companies provide very quietly in exchange for purchases.
It is sad that NASA seems to have lower standards than the Boeing or Airbus who have kept inferior materials out of their production pipelines with proper oversight, difficult qualification process and regular testing.
We supplied tubing to Space-X and Blue Origin as well. They had stringent requirements that prevented such sourcing.
Minority-Owned Business requirements.
“Steve”. That must be the same guy that Microsoft transferred me to when I reported a problem on my PC. But he had an Indian accent, not Chinese.
>>was charged with providing a false document to a federal agency and now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison
Plenty of people in the FIB need to be going to federal prison for 10 years.
Govt. contract, sounds like he was trying to save the govt. money.....
And for a generous kickback no doubt!
Korean-American sources from China and claims he got it from some other country. I’m impressed NASA detected this up front. A Long Island company did the same thing for a decade before it was finally exposed.
Must be easier to check out steel sourcing than its electronic counterpart, although it has to be said that the LI company’s CEO had a long rap sheet dating back to the 80’s, that included a stint in a boiler room stock operation. And then there’s this snippet:
[A year later, an Air Force service member noticed Chinese characters on the built-in screen of a body camera.]
I’m guessing that that NASA has a better class of personnel in its sourcing department than the Pentagon. That DoD waste and fraud we keep hearing about may not actually be a myth.
Who does the guy think he is; Hunter Biden?
It’s the Chinese way.
I suspect much of that waste and fraud is due to kickbacks at high levels, and has been embedded for a long while. This may be a contributing factor to Trump phobia -- having someone in charge with long experience in detection of fraud in his own companies.
Don’t you think its rather odd that Joe Biden’s brother Jim, who had no experience in building anything, suddenly got a multibillion dollar DoD contract for building housing in Iraq? Or that Diane Feinstein’s husband owned 24 percent of the stock of, and sat on the board of an engineering company that got a $ 600 million contract in Iraq after she voted for that totally unnecessary war? You won’t hear a complaint from warmonger and Trump critic GW Bush, whose daughter Jenna, with no discernable talent, ends up as a regular on the Today Show when there are thousands of young women, with acting, dance or other artistic backgrounds, who can’t even get an audition.
The counterfeit materials are usually very high quality impersonations with few if any visual keys and have appropriate certificate of conformance documentation. It takes multiple layers ranging from document control through physical quarantine of materials to keep bad stuff out of critical supply chains.
A couple of thoughts based on my experience complying with the Made in America Act.
1. Sometimes a product is simply not made in the US or favored trading partner (if applicable). There’s a straightforward process for documenting and asking for relief.
2. If there exists a USA product then the act of substituting a Chinese product is normally done because it’s substantially cheaper. Not because of kickbacks.
3. The prevalence of electronic documents and communication and editing software makes it extremely easy to falsify any piece of paper. Even production markings can be disguised or removed entirely.
I had a friend who worked in that industry for the last third of the 20th century.
I remember he used to tell us that quite often the weight of supporting documentation would be ridiculously greater than that of the item shipped.
At that time didn't she sit on some Pentagon "construction" committee that gave those no-bid contracts to her husband's companies and wasn't she forced to resign from said committee to avoid the "appearance" of conflict of interest?
It is why I often refer to them as "Senator and Mr. WAR PROFITEER"
I know bashing government employees is a favorite pass time but pause to consider that many government employees are there to inspect/audit contractor actions to catch things like this.
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