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By Chad Bray

(Updates with Treasury Department actions as well as additional sum of Manhattan District Attorney's allegations.)

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau pronounced Tuesday which a Chinese association as well as its physical education instructor have been charged upon rapist charges for allegedly enchanting in illegal monetary exchange by U.S. banks to assistance Iran import a accumulation of criminialized materials, together with steel alloys which could be used for chief weapons as well as ballistic missiles.

At a press conference Tuesday, Morgenthau announced a 118-count rapist indictment against Li Fang Wei, a Chinese citizen, as well as his company, Limmt Economic as well as Trade Co., as well as its various affiliates. The charges embody falsifying commercial operation annals as well as conspiracy. The falsifying commercial operation annals counts carry a judgment of up to four years in prison.

The U.S. Treasury Department, which worked closely with Morgenthau's office, pronounced Tuesday it is frozen Li's U.S. assets as well as a assets of Limmt companies, which sells steel alloys as well as minerals, together with high-strength metals as well as worldly military materials. The Treasury Department spells his surname as Fangwei.

"This is a box about selling criminialized materials as well as prohibited by a Chinese association to Iran by regulating a U.S. monetary system," Morgenthau said.

The district attorney pronounced he intends to ask a Chinese government's assistance in carrying Li, 36 years old, of Liaoning province, extradited to a U.S. to face a charges.

Li, who is additionally well known as Karl Lee, doesn't have an attorney in a U.S. He couldn't immediately be located for comment Tuesday.

Morgenthau pronounced a association had been criminialized given 2006 by a Treasury Department from enchanting in monetary exchange in a U.S. for its purpose in assisting Iran's chief proliferation program.

Limmt used aliases as well as front companies in sequence to send as well as embrace dozens of illegal payments by a U.S. between November 2006 as well as Sep 2008, Morgenthau said.

The organisation was assisted by two Chinese banks in a exchange as well as his bureau is looking into their purpose in a transactions, a district attorney said. The probe is continuing, he said.

The Treasury Department pronounced Limmt used at slightest eight aliases or front companies to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

"Our banks have high standards as well as worldly systems to stop these transactions, but this conduct was privately designed to better their systems," Morgenthau said.

During a period, Limmt used its aliases to provide criminialized missile, chief as well as supposed "dual-use" materials to subsidiaries of Iran's Defense Industries Organization, a section of a Iranian military, Morgenthau said.

The materials enclosed 15,000 kilograms of specialized aluminum amalgamate used for long-range missiles, some-more than 30,000 kilograms of tungsten-copper plates, 24,500 kilograms of maraging steel rods, Morgenthau said.

Limmt as well as Iran's Defense Industries Organization additionally engaged in negotiations for gyroscopes as well as accelerometers used in long-range missiles, he said.

Morgenthau pronounced he doesn't hold any of a New York banks were wakeful of a loyal inlet of a illegal transactions. He thanked units of Bank of New York Mellon Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!bk/quotes/nls/bk (BK 27.30, -0.22, -0.80%) , Citigroup Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!c/quotes/nls/c (C 4.06, -0.10, -2.40%) , Wells Fargo Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!wfc/quotes/nls/wfc (WFC 28.22, -0.58, -2.01%) , Bank of America Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!bac/quotes/nls/bac (BAC 16.06, -0.37, -2.25%) as well as Standard Chartered for their assistance. "We consider they were utterly deceived by a make use of of mixed aliases," Morgenthau said.

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