A federal grand jury in California has brought down a brazen scheme to import and sell used airbags as new across the United States. Pawel Pankow, 41, of Wolow, Poland, and Magdalena Pankow, 48, of Palm Coast, Florida, were indicted on charges of conspiracy to smuggle goods into the US by means of false statements and to commit wire and mail fraud, as well as four separate counts of mail fraud.
The indictment was announced by US Attorney Phillip A. Talbert, who revealed that Magdalena Pankow was arrested over the weekend in Flagler County, Florida, after the indictment issued last Thursday. However, Pawel Pankow remains at large, with no arrest or court appearance to date.
According to court documents, Pawel Pankow began shipping used airbags into the US as far back as 2008, selling thousands of them through online sales, mostly on eBay. He would list the items as brand new and genuine original equipment parts, despite being used, counterfeit, assembled from used components, and/or not authorized for sale in the US.
Pankow would ship the airbags, purchased from sources in Europe and China, to Magdalena Pankow in Florida, often mislabeling the shipments to avoid detection. Magdalena Pankow would then fulfill orders from locations in Florida by sending them through the US Postal Service, despite federal regulations classifying airbags as hazardous material and prohibiting their shipment by air or ground.
This case is the result of a joint investigation by FBI offices in Fresno, California, and Jacksonville, Florida, with assistance from the Intellectual Property Rights Center in Arlington, Virginia, US Customs and Border Protection, and Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant US Attorney David Gappa is handling the case.
If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison on each fraud count and five years in prison on the conspiracy count. Each charge carries a maximum potential fine of $250,000 and a three-year term of supervised release. But for now, the Pankows remain free, their guilt only a charge until proven in a court of law.
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Key Facts
- State: California
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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