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Richard H. Deane, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia and Amanda DeBusk, Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement, United States Department of Commerce, announce that FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL, INC., a Norcross, Georgia, based corporation, has been sentenced on charges of conspiracy to violate the United States' embargo against Iran, and MEDHI a/k/a "Michael" AZARIN, 58, of Atlanta, Georgia, the owner of FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL, and the company's manager, FARHAD AZARIN, 33, of Norcross, Georgia, have been sentenced on charges of making false statements to federal investigators. According to Deane:
FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL was sentenced to pay a fine of one quarter of a million dollars. MEDHI a/k/a "Michael" AZARIN, the owner of FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL, was sentenced to 6 months in federal prison, and an additional 5 months of home confinement, and the company's manager, FARHAD AZARIN, was sentenced to 6 months in federal prison, and an additional 5 months of home confinement.
MEDHI a/k/a "Michael" AZARIN, the owner of FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL, and the company's manager, FARHAD AZARIN, pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Orinda D. Evans on May 8, 2000, which had been the first scheduled day of trial on the charges.
On December 2, 1998, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against the corporation and the two men. The indictment charged that from May, 1995, through June, 1996, FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL conspired with German and Iranian companies to export automobile parts from the U.S. to companies in Iran in violation of an Executive Order issued by the President of the United States in May, 1995. The order imposed an embargo against Iran which prohibited virtually all exports of goods from the U.S. to Iran and also prohibited persons in the U.S. from conducting transactions with the purpose of evading and avoiding the embargo's prohibitions.
Between October 1995, and June, 1996, FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL conspired to export auto parts to Iran using a German company as an intermediary to complete the transactions. Approximately $600,000 worth of auto parts were shipped from the FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL warehouse for this purpose, and the government alleged that FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL was preparing to make additional shipments valued at $5-6 million when the scheme was discovered and stopped by the United States Department of Commerce, Office of Export Enforcement.
During the Commerce Department's investigation, MEHDI AZARIN, the owner of Federal Parts International, and FARHAD AZARIN, his nephew, were both questioned as to whether the German company was forwarding the auto parts it had received from FEDERAL PARTS INTERNATIONAL to companies in Iran. Both MEHDI AZARIN and FARHAD AZARIN falsely denied that they knew what the German company was doing with those parts.
The case was investigated by Special Agents of the Office of Export Enforcement, United States Department of Commerce.
Assistant United States Attorneys Daniel P. Griffin and Randy S. Chartash are prosecuting the case.
For further information please contact Richard H. Deane, Jr., United States Attorney or F. Gentry Shelnutt, Criminal Chief, through Patrick Crosby, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Attorney's Office, at (404) 581-6016.
In April of 2002 the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) changed its name to the Bureau of Industry and Security(BIS). For historical purposes we have not changed the references to BXA in the legacy documents found in the Archived Press and Public Information.