Attention InfraGard member,

Please join us for the North Carolina premiere of the movie Made in America, a production of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in association with the National Counterintelligence Security Center and Rocket Media Group.  The meeting will be held on February 15, 2017 from 1:00pm – 4:00pm at the Cisco Blue Ridge Conference Center (building 5), 7025 Kit Creek Road, Morrisville, NC 27560.

Based on a true story, Made in America is a short film intended to educate private industry about illicit procurement of U.S. export controlled items.  The film depicts an FBI investigation that resulted in the neutralization of key suppliers to Iran’s Nuclear and Ballistic Missile Program.

The film Made in America begins with a shipment of U.S.-origin goods arriving at a suspected undisclosed nuclear facility.  The crates are labeled “Made in USA” but the company logo is less identifiable.  The movie shifts to the arrival of a new export compliance officer at a U.S. company that manufactures carbon fiber.  The export compliance manager gradually discovers that the U.S. company missed “red flag” warning signs during its negotiation with the procurement agents, including a request for the product to be “drop-shipped” to another location, wire transfers originating from a third party not previously identified as being part of the transaction, internet protocol (IP) addresses reverting back to Iran, and the stated end-use not requiring such a high-grade of carbon fiber.  The export compliance officer alerts executive management to the suspected proliferation activity, and after careful consideration, the company contacts the FBI.  The FBI was already aware of the diverted U.S. export, but the company’s information and cooperation prove invaluable to identify the proliferators and lead to the disruption of a major proliferation network.

Most U.S.-based companies in the private sector do not choose to break the law and wittingly sell export-prohibited materials to embargoed countries, denied entities, and/or prohibited end-users or end-use destinations. Instead, the inexperience many companies have with export compliance rules, the constant pressure to meet the fiscal bottom line, and the elaborate trickery pursued by front companies posing as legitimate purchasers enable procurement agents to target U.S. companies and illegally procure U.S.-origin items in violation of U.S. export laws.

Click on the following link to view the movie trailer:

Trailer:  https://youtu.be/ie0k7FaVfI8

A panel discussion of the movie lessons learned will take place after the movie.