china daily双语新闻：在美代购豪车倒卖中国遭罚没,检方撤诉

china daily双语新闻：在美代购豪车倒卖中国遭罚没，检方撤诉A luxury car exporter’s nearly two-year legal battle to recover a Porsche Cayenne and $120,786 seized by UnitedStates authorities has ended with federal prosecutors inSouth Carolina agreeing to return the property and drop acivil forfeiture lawsuit.为了夺回被美国*查扣的一辆保时捷卡宴(Porsche Cayenne)和120786美元（约合75万元人民币）资金，一名豪华汽车出口商打了近两年的官司。

现在官司结束了，南卡罗来纳州的联邦检察官同意退还那些财产，并撤销民事罚没诉讼。

The deal with the exporter, Alibek Turkayev, follows at least a dozen other similar settlements. In nine states,federal prosecutors have reached agreements with other small companies involved in buying luxury cars in the United States and reselling them overseas, mainly in China, for a bigprofit.在与这位名叫阿力别克·图尔卡耶夫(Alibek Turkayev)的出口商达成妥协之前，已经发生了至少十几宗类似的和解案例。

九个州的联邦检察官都与其他小公司达成了协议。

这些公司为了赚取巨额利润，在美国购买豪车，再将其转卖至海外，主要是中国。

In many of those cases, federal authorities in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Ohio settled the disputes by returning all of the seized cars. In one of the bigger settlements, federal prosecutors in South Carolina agreed in January to return 57 luxury cars and hundreds of thousands ofdollars to Hong Chen and his Mayrock Group, which is based in Virginia.在其中的很多案件里，南卡罗来纳、佛罗里达、乔治亚和俄亥俄州的联邦*，同意退还所有被没收的车辆，对这些案件达成了和解。

在规模较大的一宗和解案中，南卡罗来纳州的联邦检察官于今年1月同意将57辆豪车，连同数十万美元返还给陈宏（音）和他名下总部位于弗吉尼亚州的美石集团(Mayrock Group)。

The wave of settlements signals a retreat by federal prosecutors in a campaign against a niche business that seeks to exploit the demand for high-end vehicles in China, where cars that typically retail for $55,000 in the United States can be resold for as much as three times that price.这个系列和解动作表明，联邦检察官打击一种偏门生意的行动偃旗息鼓了。

这门生意力图利用中国国内对高端汽车的需求，在美国零售价通常为5.5万美元的汽车，在中国转手就能够卖出三倍的价钱。

American export companies were reselling tens ofthousands of luxury cars a year to buyers in China and other countries before federal authorities began filing the civil forfeiture lawsuits in 2020 that brought much of the activity to a halt.在联邦*2020年开始提起民事罚没诉讼之前，美国的出口企业每年会向中国和其他国家的买家，转售数以万计的豪车。

诉讼行动开始后，绝大部分转卖活动停止了。

The crackdown was driven largely by agents with theSecret Service and the Department of Homeland Security, who questioned whether these small export companies wereviolating federal law by using straw buyers — people paid small sums to buy cars — to conceal that the vehicles werebeing bought by people who had no intention of keeping them and were using cash from other people to make the acquisitions. Federal authorities have argued that using straw buyers is a deceptive practice that potentially deprives American consumers of a chance to buy the luxury cars and limits the ability of automakers to keep tight control over sales to domestic dealers and to foreign countries.这场行动主要是由特勤局(Secret Service)和国土安全部(Department of Homeland Security)的特工推动的。

他们怀疑，这些小型出口公司利用“稻草人买家”(straw buyers)的做法违反了联邦法律。

这些被称为“稻草人买家”的代购者，付出少量资金来购置车辆，从而掩盖真实买家无意长期持有车辆，且购车资金来自他人的事实。

联邦*称，如此利用代购是一种欺诈行为，潜在地剥夺了美国消费者购买豪车的机会，而且使汽车厂商无法严格控制车辆流向国内经销商还是国外。

But the Justice Department recently advised its prosecutors to be more judicious in pursuing civil forfeiture actions — and even criminal cases —against car export companies and their owners.但最近，司法部(Justice Department)建议自己的检察官，在对汽车出口公司及其老板提起民事罚没诉讼，乃至刑事诉讼的行动中，要更审慎一些。

“Over the past year, we have been engaged in a comprehensive review of the asset forfeiture program, including straw-buyer luxury export cases and other aspects of the program,” said Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, in an emailed statement. “As a result of this ongoing review, the department is encouraging prosecutors topursue civil and criminal sanctions for straw-buyer fraud cases that lead to other criminal violations, such as tax fraud, identify theft fraud and the submission of falseexport documents.”“过去一年里，我们对资产罚没计划，包括代购豪车出口案及该计划的其他方面，实行了全面审核，”司法部发言人彼得·卡尔(Peter Carr)通过电子邮件发表声明称。

“因为这项仍在实行的审核工作，司法部鼓励检察官，对构成其他刑事犯罪（如税务欺诈、身份盗窃欺诈和提交虚假出口文件）的代购诈骗案件，追究民事和刑事责任。

”In practice, that means using a straw buyer alone to buya car may not be enough evidence for government agents toseize a vehicle from an export company, said people briefedon the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.在操作层面上，这意味着单凭利用“稻草人买家”这个点，可能不构成政府机关没收出口公司车辆的充分证据，一些了解情况的人士在匿名条件下透露。

Since 2020, raids by the Secret Service have resulted in hundreds of Mercedes, Land Rovers, BMWs and Porsches being seized, many of them just as they were waiting to be loaded onto cargo ships. The Porsche bought by Mr. Turkayev’s company was among 14 luxury cars seized by the Secret Service in South Carolina and in Kearny, N.J. Also frozen by the federal government were millions of dollars in proceeds from the sale of cars to overseas buyers.自2020年以来，在特勤局展开的突击搜查中，已有数百辆梅赛德斯-奔驰(Mercedes)、路虎(Land Rover)、宝马(BMW)和保时捷被没收，其中很多车辆是在等待装运到货船上时被没收的。