Head of Huntington Beach Firm Gets 2 Years in Smuggling Case

The owner of a Huntington Beach computer chip brokerage firm was sentenced Friday to two years in prison and fined $100,000 for smuggling computer chips into the United States from Japan.

Paul Columbus, owner of Columbus International, pleaded guilty in federal court on Sept. 25 to two counts of smuggling 74,500 Japanese-made 256K DRAM chips.

Columbus, 29, originally was charged with conspiring with a Japanese engineering firm to smuggle about 460,000 computer chips into the United States via Canada from March to October, 1986.

Federal officials said at the time of the July indictment that Columbus was suspected of making several trips to Tokyo to buy computer chips from Showa Engineering Co. and other brokers at prices much lower than those charged by U.S. manufacturers.

The records of Columbus International, seized by U.S. Customs during the execution of a search warrant, showed Columbus’ profits increased dramatically as a result of his sales of the smuggled Japanese chips.

The smuggling activity of Columbus cost the United States revenue and duty losses of close to $400,000, according to Gene Anderson, U.S. attorney for western Washington.

In sentencing Columbus, U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein said he was engaged in a “well-conceived plan to smuggle the Japanese computer chips for the apparent purpose of improving his company’s profits.”

In addition to the criminal sentence, Columbus also faces the possible civil forfeiture of 90,000 of the smuggled chips that were seized, and civil penalties to be imposed by the U.S. Customs Service, Anderson said.