[link|http://www.forbes.com/global/2004/0419/041_print.html|http://www.forbes.co...19/041_print.html]

If you want to get round export controls, just sell the product to a front company in Dubai. The middlemen will take it from there.

On paper the shipment was harmless enough. Sixty-six American-made spark gaps--high-speed electrical switches used in medical devices to break up kidney stones--traveled from the manufacturer in Salem, Massachusetts late last summer to a buyer in Secaucus, New Jersey. From there, according to the export declaration, they were to be shipped to their ultimate destination in Cape Town, South Africa. But these spark gaps can also be used to detonate nuclear bombs--and it turned out that the goods were aimed at an end user in Pakistan, with a stopover in Dubai. The commercial capital of the United Arab Emirates, where trading activity accounts for the biggest single chunk (16.5%) of a $20 billion economy, has become a favorite diversion point on the Persian Gulf for shady cargo. With no export controls and hardly any bureaucracy at ports, airports and free zones, this entrep\ufffdt provides stellar cover for smugglers hoping to bypass U.S. embargoes.
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I guess it is about export controls.