Stow, Ohio – A 70-year-old Stow resident, Vall Iliev, has been sentenced to 63 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, after pleading guilty to smuggling foreign-made body armor into the United States and marketing it as domestically manufactured and certified. U.S. District Court Judge Donald C. Nugent handed down the sentence and ordered Iliev to pay approximately $5.2 million in restitution for his role in the scheme.
According to court documents and testimony, the scheme unraveled in May 2023 when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted a Canadian-registered truck at the Blaine, Washington port of entry (POE). The truck was carrying over 200 ballistic body armor plates packed in boxes from China. Authorities discovered that the items were concealed using a smuggling technique called “Master Carton Smuggling,” where smaller packages are hidden inside a larger shipping container to avoid detection at the border.
The armor shipments were pre-addressed to Iliev’s home or his businesses, Vallmar Studios and ShotStop, both based in Stow. Vallmar Studios was used as a warehouse to handle and process the body armor, which was then sold through ShotStop’s website to law enforcement agencies and members of the public…