2 Charged in LAX Infrared Cameras Case

Beijing residents Zhi Yong Guo, 49, and Tah Wei Chao, 52, were named in a criminal complaint alleging they knowingly exported or attempted to export restricted items without a license, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Prosecutors said both men were a flight risk and asked that they be held without bail. Both were scheduled to be arraigned on April 28.

Chao's attorney Richard Goldman said he did not yet know how his client planned to plead.

"I believe in the presumption of innocence," Goldman said.

A phone message left for Guo's attorney, David Bortman, was not immediately returned.

Guo and Chao each face up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.

The men were arrested Saturday at Los Angeles International Airport after they tried to board a plane to China with 10 thermal imaging cameras in their luggage without the proper export licenses, the government said.

The cameras, which are primarily used by law enforcement, fire departments and the military, are carefully controlled for national security reasons, and are treated as munitions under the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations. They produce heat-based images invisible to the naked eye.

Federal authorities had been investigating the men since last August, when an Oregon-based company informed them of an order for three of the cameras from a new customer Printing Plus Graphics of San Gabriel, Calif., according to an affidavit from Special Agent Steve Huerta of the Department of Commerce.