Rebecca C. Lutzko United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio | U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio
Rebecca C. Lutzko United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio | U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio
Vall Iliev, a 70-year-old resident of Stow, Ohio, has been sentenced to 63 months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Donald C. Nugent. Iliev pleaded guilty in March to smuggling foreign-made body armor and selling it as legitimate domestically-made certified products to law enforcement agencies and the public. In addition to his prison sentence, Iliev will serve three years of supervised release and pay approximately $5.2 million in restitution.
Court documents reveal that in May 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted a Canadian-registered truck at the Blaine, Washington port of entry carrying over 200 ballistic body armor plates from China. The plates were concealed using "Master Carton Smuggling," a technique intended to evade detection by officials. The shipment was addressed to Iliev’s home or his businesses, Vallmar Studios and ShotStop, both located in Stow.
Vallmar Studios functioned as a warehouse where the armor was processed before being sold through the ShotStop website. The products were marketed as American-made and labeled as certified by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which sets performance standards for ballistic-resistant police body armor.
Inspectors found that none of the Chinese-manufactured items qualified for NIJ certification since approved manufacturers are only based in the United States. Investigators discovered that labels claiming NIJ certification and American origin were added after the products arrived from China but before they were sold by ShotStop. Despite advertising claims that these products were made in Stow, Ohio, neither Vallmar Studios nor ShotStop had facilities capable of manufacturing body armor.
The investigation was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations Cleveland Office with assistance from the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Assistant United States Attorney Duncan T. Brown prosecuted the case for the Northern District of Ohio.
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