{"id":1143,"date":"2026-02-06T10:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T14:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2026-02-27T08:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:53:08","slug":"united-kingdom-company-director-convicted-and-sentenced-for-exports-of-military-grade-rifle-sights-to-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/2026\/02\/06\/united-kingdom-company-director-convicted-and-sentenced-for-exports-of-military-grade-rifle-sights-to-hong-kong\/","title":{"rendered":"United Kingdom &#8211; company director convicted and sentenced for exports of military-grade rifle sights to Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The UK&#8217;s HMRC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mynewsdesk.com\/uk\/hm-revenue-customs-hmrc\/pressreleases\/company-director-tried-to-smuggle-thermal-imaging-rifle-sights-to-hong-kong-3431339\">has issued a press release<\/a> announcing the conviction and sentencing of Steven Gates for unlicensed exports of eight military-grade rifle sights to a buyer in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Customs declarations were also falsified to say the sights were camera equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One export was prevented in February 2022 by Border Force staff at Manchester Airport, and another in April 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Searches at his house revealed evidence of another 10 exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Gates has been sentenced to jail for 2 years and one month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Importantly, the press release notes that HMRC is &#8220;pursuing 51 criminal investigations in 2024\/2025 compared with give in 2021\/22&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK&#8217;s HMRC has issued a press release announcing the conviction and sentencing of Steven Gates for unlicensed exports of eight military-grade rifle sights to a buyer in Hong Kong. Customs declarations were also falsified to say the sights were camera equipment. One export was prevented in February 2022 by Border Force staff at Manchester &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/2026\/02\/06\/united-kingdom-company-director-convicted-and-sentenced-for-exports-of-military-grade-rifle-sights-to-hong-kong\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;United Kingdom &#8211; company director convicted and sentenced for exports of military-grade rifle sights to Hong Kong&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":656,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,2],"tags":[37,14,15,9],"ppma_author":[7],"class_list":["post-1143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-104","category-general","tag-custodial-sentence","tag-export-controls","tag-military-goods","tag-united-kingdom"],"authors":[{"term_id":7,"user_id":656,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mhandley","display_name":"Mark Handley","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2023\/09\/handleymark-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/europeansanctionsenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}