East Bay man gets 3 1/2 years in federal prison for selling counterfeit electronics to military

A federal judge has sentenced an Alameda County man to 3½ years in prison after he pleaded guilty to selling $3.5 million in counterfeit and substandard electronics for use in military systems, authorities said.

The scheme by Steve H.S. Kim, 63, was intended to defraud the Defense Logistics Agency, a branch within the United States Department of Defense, U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey of the Northern District of California said in a statement.

Those electronics were expected to be used on a nuclear submarine, a laser system on an aircraft and a surface-to-air-missile system, Ramsey said.

“Our military must be able to trust that the equipment it is receiving actually reflects what it has purchased,” Ramsey said.

Court documents stated that Kim controlled Company A, which sold fan assemblies to the DLA. Ramsey said those fan assemblies were either counterfeit or used surplus parts that Kim claimed were new.

Ramsey said Kim created the counterfeit labels to trick the DLA into accepting the fan assemblies. Court documents stated that Kim also gave the agency fake tracing documents that he created and signed with a false identity.