SANTA ANA, CA – The owner of PRB Logics was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for selling counterfeit integrated circuits he obtained from China, some of which were purchased by defense contractors for military use.

US District Judge Josephine L. Staton also ordered Vasquez to pay $144,000 in restitution.

On Jan. 17, Vasquez pleaded guilty to four felonies: one count of wire fraud, two counts of trafficking in counterfeit goods, and one count of trafficking in counterfeit military goods.

From July 2009 until May 2016, Vasquez acquired used and/or discarded ICs from Chinese suppliers that had been repainted and remarked with counterfeit logos. The devices were further remarked with altered date codes, lot codes or countries of origin to deceive customers and end users into thinking the ICs were new. Vasquez sold the counterfeit electronics made to look like new parts from manufacturers such as Xilinx, Analog Devices and Intel.

In August 2012, Vasquez purchased counterfeit circuits from China and sold them to a defense subcontractor located in the US, which, in turn, supplied the parts to a defense contractor. The counterfeit parts ended up in a classified weapon system used by the US Air Force.

Between November 2015 and May 2016, Vasquez, using the alias “James Harrison,” sold a total of 106 counterfeit ICs to an undercover federal agent. Vasquez admitted in his plea agreement that in April 2016 he sold eight counterfeit ICs he believed would be used by the US military in the B-1 Lancer Bomber military aircraft.

Vasquez instructed Chinese suppliers to remark ICs and instructed a testing laboratory in China to provide two versions of its report, one of which accurately showed IC test results and the second of which was “sanitized.”

Vasquez has agreed to forfeit $97,362 in cash and 169,148 counterfeit ICs seized during the investigation. Vasquez admitted over the course of seven years, he trafficked more than 9,000 ICs with a total infringement value of $894,218.

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