The owner of a technology company persuaded New Jersey public safety officials to spend at least $35 million on security equipment, a federal complaint says.
The owner of a technology company duped public safety and law enforcement agencies in New Jersey into spending at least $35 million, including $15 million in Covid-19 relief and other federal funding, on banned Chinese surveillance and security equipment, according to a complaint unveiled this week. Supply Chain Operations
According to the complaint, the company’s owner and chief executive, Tamer Zakhary, “fraudulently misrepresented” the equipment he was selling, like automatic license plate readers and surveillance cameras, telling New Jersey agencies that the products complied with U.S. regulations. Mr. Zakhary, 49, was charged with wire fraud and with giving false statements to federal agents.
Mr. Zakhary’s scheme began in about August 2019 and lasted through December 2022, according to prosecutors. Throughout that time, he sold equipment to police departments, sheriffs’ offices, prosecutors’ offices and townships through his New Jersey company, listed online as Packetalk.
In one instance, Mr. Zakhary emailed a manufacturer — whose technology the Federal Communications Commission had banned from being imported, sold or operated in the United States — to ask that it produce cameras with a different color and logo to hide the maker’s identity, according to the complaint. That exchange, federal prosecutors said, showed that Mr. Zakhary knew he was purchasing banned technology and was “attempting to conceal that fact.”
The complaint, issued by the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, did not identify the company whose equipment Mr. Zakhary is accused of selling, but prosecutors said it was on a list of tech companies banned under a 2018 federal law that aimed to stem concerns that “foreign intelligence actors,” specifically Chinese companies, were trying to infiltrate the country through technology.
The charges against Mr. Zakhary, and the revelation that law enforcement agencies in New Jersey had bought technology that the federal government considered a national security risk, comes during an escalating tech war between the United States and China.
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