Cafe Encounter Lands ‘Techno-Bandit’ Suspect

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Daniel Fudge was having a cup of coffee in a roadside restaurant in the tiny Yukon Territory fishing town of Teslin earlier this week when he glanced at the man eating lunch next to him and knew that he had seen the face before.

Fudge had, in fact, been studying a photo of the man just hours before--on a wanted poster for Charles J. McVey II, a fugitive Orange County businessman whose name is on the U.S. Customs Service’s list of the 10 most wanted high-technology smugglers.

McVey had been missing since before his 1983 federal indictment on charges that he and two other men illegally shipped more than $15 million worth of computer equipment to the Soviet Union. McVey’s scheme was believed to have been one of the largest illegal computer export businesses ever investigated by the Customs Service’s Operation Exodus, which is aimed at stopping the flow of technology to the Soviet Union.

For Fudge, getting his man was as simple as a walk across town.

“You don’t have to go very far to go looking for someone around here,” Fudge said Friday in a telephone interview.

Fudge spotted McVey Tuesday and made the arrest Wednesday, after obtaining an arrest warrant. Accompanied by other law enforcement officials, he arrested the 6-feet, 3-inch, 300-plus-pound businessman at a private residence where McVey had been staying during his fishing trip.

McVey surrendered peacefully, Fudge said: “He didn’t seem surprised. He admitted he was McVey and that he was wanted in the States.”

On Friday afternoon, McVey appeared in court in Vancouver, British Columbia, to face extradition proceedings, a spokesman for the Queen’s Counsel said. His case was postponed to Monday, when McVey is expected to apply for bail.

McVey, 57, who lived in Villa Park and ran several Anaheim-based businesses before the indictment, is ranked fourth on the most-wanted list of “techno-bandits”--people suspected of violating federal laws against the illegal export of arms and technology crucial to modern weapons. Last year he was fined $1.24 million by the Department of Commerce in absentia and was denied all export privileges for 30 years.

Fudge, a 15-year RCMP member who was assigned to the three-man detachment in Teslin just three weeks ago, said that he had not been contacted by U.S. officials to be on the lookout for McVey and that there had been no recent renewed effort by Customs officials to track down the suspect.

But Fudge said he has been notified by another Mountie who had been posted in Teslin previously that McVey could be in the area.

The other officer had spoken with a resident who “said he might be around,” Fudge said, so the officer pulled out the file on McVey that was kept in the Teslin office and reviewed the photograph and information on the fugitive.

“It’s been known for a number of years that he sometimes comes to Teslin on fishing trips,” Fudge said. In fact, McVey was staying with a resident whom he had apparently met on a previous trip.

Teslin is “crawling with American tourists this time of year,” Fudge said. The town of about 350, located on the main highway to Alaska, is adjacent to Teslin Lake and is noted for its trout and salmon fishing. It is just north of the British Columbia-Yukon border and about 110 miles southeast of Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon Territory.

Initially, Fudge said, he didn’t know how well known McVey was.

‘Very, Very Interested’

“Once I got talking to the U.S. authorities, I found out they were very, very interested, and I realized then he was someone more than your ordinary smuggler,” Fudge said.

“Yes, we were (surprised) and very happy,” said Joseph Charles, assistant special agent of the Pacific regional Customs office in Los Angeles.

He confirmed that there had been no recent efforts to find McVey in Canada but said that Canadian officials had the Interpol “red sheet,” a type of wanted poster that shows the fugitive’s picture and gives a synopsis of charges.

“We had heard rumors that he had been sighted in Switzerland or Malta,” he said.

According to the Customs Service, McVey was traveling on a Guatemalan passport issued in Rome under the name of Carlos Juan Williams.

Fudge said he had chatted with McVey during the two-hour drive to the Mounties’ Yukon headquarters in Whitehorse, but Fudge was reluctant to divulge many details.

“He said a lot of things. Guatemala was mentioned. He said he had been residing there over a year,” Fudge said.

McVey also mentioned living in Switzerland, the Mountie said: “I got the impression that he’s fairly well to do. I don’t think he suffers in wants too much.

“The man’s a very bright individual. He knows what’s facing him, and he’s well aware of the consequences, of what’s going to happen to him if he’s convicted.”

According to Customs, if McVey is convicted on the original charges, he could receive a sentence of more than 100 years in prison and more than $500,000 in fines.

P.W. Halprin, a special prosecutor with the Canadian Department of Justice who is handling McVey’s case, said he believes McVey will fight extradition. Halprin said he plans to oppose any application for bail Monday before Judge John C. Cowan because of the man’s longtime fugitive status and because he has been using a passport “not in his own name.”

After the proceeding Monday, a full extradition hearing will be scheduled, Halprin said, at which the prosecutor will have to “prove that the crime (of illegal exportation) was committed” to win McVey’s extradition to the United States for trial.

$15 Million in Exports

The 1983 indictment charged McVey and two others--Rolf Leinhard, a Swiss national, and Yuri Boyarinov, a Soviet national--with illegally exporting $15 million worth of state-of-the-art computers and peripheral equipment to the Soviet Union during a 4 1/2-year period. They were also charged with conspiracy and making false statements to government officials. Leinhard and Boyarinov remain fugitives.

The indictment alleged that McVey used Southern California companies to obtain his products. The companies named in the indictment were Vanguard Data Systems, Vanguard International, Land Resources Management and Facilities Management Ltd.

McVey, through his corporate entities, was engaged in the large-scale purchase of state-of-the-art computers and computer peripherals, according to the indictment.

When the computer components were delivered to McVey’s facilities in Anaheim, his staff modified them, repackaged them and shipped them to Leinhard, a freight forwarder, in Zurich, Switzerland, according to federal officials.

Leinhard would then ship the computer products into the Soviet Union, where they would be received by Boyarinov, a senior consultant with V/O Electronorgtechnica, which acted as a Soviet purchasing agency, U.S. officials said.

Boyarinov would also provide McVey with purchase orders for computers during McVey’s many trips to the Soviet Union, they said. McVey failed to obtain valid export licenses from the Commerce Department to ship the computer products.

Fine Hasn’t Been Paid

At the time of the indictment, McVey’s attorney denied the accusations. Neither that attorney nor a Vancouver attorney representing McVey in the extradition proceedings could not be reached for comment Friday.

The fine of $1.24 million levied against McVey by the Department of Commerce in 1986 has not been paid, and four companies owned by McVey have been shut down, according to special agent Charles of the Customs Service.

In a statement released Friday, U.S. Commissioner of Customs William von Raab said in Washington, D.C., that “stopping the flow of U.S. critical technology to the Soviet Union is pivotal to our country’s national defense.”

“McVey’s apprehension signals our intent to seek out these techno-bandits wherever they might run,” he said.

Quint Villanueva, Pacific regional commissioner of Customs, added: “McVey’s capture is an outstanding example of professional police work and international law enforcement cooperation. . . . I greatly admire the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and especially congratulate Cpl. Fudge for his efforts.”

Fudge allowed that he had gotten off to a flashy start by catching a big one in his new assignment in the tiny fishing town. “Yes, it’s my one fleeting moment of fame,” he said.

Times staff writer John Tighe contributed to this story.