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 for smuggling foreign-made body armor and selling it as domestically-made certified products. U.S. District Court Judge Donald C. Nugent handed down the sentence after Iliev pleaded guilty in March. In addition to the prison term, Iliev will serve three years of supervised release and pay approximately $5.2 million in restitution.
Court documents revealed 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 boxes were 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 to law enforcement agencies and the public. The armor was falsely 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.
Investigators found that none of the Chinese-manufactured items qualified for NIJ certification since approved manufacturers are only based in the United States. It was discovered that labels claiming NIJ certification and American origin were added after arrival from China but before sale by ShotStop. Despite advertising claims, 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.
