Response to BBC News article

Beck unequivocally disputes allegations made in a recent BBC News report that via a third party our products may have been supplied to Russia in a breach of UK government sanctions.

The BBC News report and online article (aired and uploaded on Wednesday November 20 - See full report here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4vzlx1350o) implied Beck products may have been shipped to Russia by two third party companies who had used our company name in the relevant customs documentation.

The BBC report recognised this may haveoccurred without our knowledge: “There’s no evidence that Beck Optronics knew about these shipments or that the final destination of the lenses was Russia.” 

We are specifically disappointed the report did not fairly include our assertion that neither we nor the BBC found incontrovertible material evidence to prove that Beck products were actually supplied to Russia by a third party or that the description of the products supplied matched those we have previously made and sold.

Beck is a small optical engineering company with 22 employees. We don’t manufacture or ship products in large volumes, rather we work with clients to meet their specific optical needs with bespoke production.  

Our business has been founded on trust and integrity which we do everything to protect at all times.

As manufacturers of precision optical equipment, we are acutely aware of our responsibility to take all possible steps to ensure none of our products are shipped to Russia or any other territory in contravention of sanctions.

We have never engaged in any breach of international trade sanctions or any other form of illegal activity and we never will.  We always take all necessary commercial precautions and meet all legal regulatory requirements in our dealings with clients.

The volumes described in the article would be exceptionally large contracts for our business to fulfil and generally take us years to deliver.   

While we fully respect and support the BBC’s obligation to investigate these matters – and thank them for pointing out how our company name may have been misused without our knowledge on this occasion – there is no evidence to substantiate the customs documentation entries (relied upon by the BBC in their report to suggest that Beck product was involved in the shipments) or that we have been complicit in any sanctions breaching activity.   

Prior to the broadcast and publication of this news report/article, BBC journalist, Angus Crawford, contacted Beck for comment on copies of Russian/Kyrgyzstan custom documents he had uncovered.  

The documents named Beck (or a derivation of our name) as the original manufacturer of equipment that has been shipped to Russia by third parties.

We informed Mr Crawford that the product descriptions cited in the customs documents are technically incoherent and inconsistent with the specification data of our products.  

The only Beck product that could conceivably be aligned to the customs document is a type of zoom lens we have exported to reputable clients having gained the relevant clearance from the appropriate UK export authorities.  

These lenses are then integrated into larger systems specifically using specific design data we provide to the client. This additional data is not in the public domain.

Given the relatively small volume of shipments of these lenses involved, it is easy for us to confirm with clients the location of product we have supplied. Since publication of the article, we have contacted the relevant clients to ensure the equipment was duly delivered to them and has not been diverted elsewhere.  

We have found no evidence to substantiate claims that any of our zoom lenses could feasibly have been diverted to Russia – and we have not shipped any other product in the volumes suggested or that could possibly correlate with the customs documentation or be of use to a third party due to their specialist nature.  

For these reasons we are absolutely confident that no Beck product has been shipped to Russia as suggested.

The overarching question remains - how or why our name is shown on the customs documentation?  

The most likely answer would appear to be to disguise the origin of the actual equipment being shipped.

We believe this obvious question should have been asked by the BBC reporter. After all, why would any organisation or person planning a sophisticated operation to contravene sanctions name its specific equipment supplier in a public record when it would be easy to disguise that identity? Not only would it have clearly negative consequences but also risk their supply chain.

 The most likely explanation is that Beck’s name (easily found by an online search) was used as credible cover to conceal the name of the actual manufacturer and product to allow the third party to continue to source for further shipments.   

In an email sent by Mr Crawford on 28 October 2024, he asserts: “we have three independent sources which confirm that the equipment in these shipments was manufactured by your company.”  

The question is how they would have known?  The lenses we ship have no branding or company identification - they only carry a descriptor, part number, serial number and date. How could the three independent sources have sufficient knowledge to verify that it was our equipment rather than a lens from a different supplier?

Elsewhere in the article it asserts:

“Shisan LLC, another Kyrgyz company, was responsible for four further shipments of Beck Optronics’ products worth $1.5m (£1.1m).”  

There is no evidence to substantiate the content of the shipments was Beck product other than the reference in the customs documentation and the unverifiable claims.  It is wholly incorrect to make that assertion if this cannot be proven.

Earlier in the piece the BBC is less assertive regarding Beck:

“The BBC has identified, through customs documents, a total of six shipments of products said to have been made by Beck with a total value of $2.1m (£1.6m) and transferred to Moscow through Rama and another intermediary company, Shisan LLC.”

‘…said to have been made by Beck…’ indicates the BBC reporter also has some doubt that it was Beck product – a position we believe should have prevailed throughout the article.  

In our correspondence with the BBC, we identified a full data sheet of a zoom product from another manufacturer that matched the technical details in the customs documentation much more closely than anything made by Beck.   This, in our view, casts further doubt that the actual equipment was manufactured by Beck.

Given this information we believe the BBC was unfair to reference Beck. It depicts us as a major defence company when in fact we are a small, specialist optical engineering company working across multiple sectors including space, medicine, science, machine vision / industrial applications and simulation as well as defence.  

The article is drafted to lead any casual reader to believe that Beck is somehow involved in shipping restricted products to Russia while failing to accurately produce evidence to support this claim.  This presentation has potential to seriously damage our reputation.

We will therefore file a formal complaint to the BBC in due course.

22 November 2024