On September 7, 2017, Erdal Kuyumcu was sentenced to 57 months in prison for conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Kuyumcu illegally exported 1,000 pounds of cobalt-nickel metallic power to Iran through an intermediary in Turkey in 2013 without the licenses required by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). A sentencing memo by the U.S. Department of Justice said there was "strong circumstantial evidence" that the powder, which has military, missile, and nuclear applications, ultimately reached an entity designated by OFAC for its connection to Iran’s nuclear program. Kuyumcu is a Turkish-born naturalized U.S. citizen and the CEO of Global Metallurgy.