CLEVELAND – In a stunning revelation, 70-year-old Vall Iliev of Stow, Ohio, has been handed a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to smuggling foreign-made body armor and deceitfully selling it as domestically produced and certified products.
Iliev’s deceptions came to light when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted a truck laden with over 200 ballistic plates at the Blaine, Washington port of entry. The plates were concealed in shipping containers using ‘Master Carton Smuggling,’ a technique aimed at evading detection by POE officials.
Further investigation revealed that Vallmar Studios, one of Iliev’s businesses, served as a warehouse for processing the armor before selling it via ShotStop to law enforcement and the public. Iliev falsely advertised the body armor as American-made and NIJ-certified, a claim that investigators soon discovered was fraudulent.
Examinations showed that none of the Chinese-manufactured plates were eligible for NIJ certification, as approved manufacturers are exclusively based in the United States. The NIJ labels on the armor were added before sale, despite Iliev’s claims of American origin and local manufacturing.
This case was a joint effort between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Cleveland Office, the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Assistant United States Attorney Duncan T. Brown prosecuted the case for the Northern District of Ohio.
In addition to his prison term, Iliev was ordered to pay approximately $5.2 million in restitution and serve three years of supervised release upon his release from prison.
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Key Facts
- State: Ohio
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Drug Trafficking|Fraud & Financial Crimes|Public Corruption|White Collar Crime|Organized Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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