Sleeping with the Enemy
A Lynn company has been charged with doing business with the enemy, according to newly released government documents. Its crime? Trying to sell about $1,000 worth of sponges to Iran. American Surgical Sponges president Ed Greenspan says the firm paid $100 to the U.S. Treasury to settle the case. He claims the sponges were being donated, not sold.
The Treasury also found GTECH Corporation, a lottery systems company based in Rhode Island, in violation of sanctions against Libya because, during a conference of lottery groups in Malta in 1999, GTECH representatives stayed at two hotels owned by a firm controlled by the Libyan government, GTECH spokesman Bob Vincent says. The employees checked out of the hotels when they learned who owned them, Vincent says. The company was nonetheless forced to pay $23,200 to the Treasury to settle the matter.