Aventura Technologies – an American surveillance equipment vendor located on Long Island, New York – has been busted for allegedly slapping phony “Made in the U.S.A.” labels on Chinese gear and selling it to customers including the US military and federal government.
For years, Aventura’s been shipping out boxes with American flag logos to outfit government agencies. Its gear – the company sells surveillance cameras, ground-based radar, artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition software, and
many other hardware and software security technologies – has been installed on everything from aircraft carriers to a Department of Energy facility. The alleged fraud was discovered last year by an Air Force service member who noticed Chinese characters displayed on the built-in screen of one of the company’s body cameras. On Thursday, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said that seven defendants – current and former Aventura employees – have allegedly been lying for years, claiming that the equipment had been manufactured at Aventura’s base in Commack, New York. Actually, they were allegedly peddling made-in-China electronics with “known cyber vulnerabilities”, raising the possibility that US agencies have installed software in security networks that China could use for spying.