The potential magnitude of such programs is illustrated by the program conducted by the former Soviet Union. These reports state that the KGB acquired 12,000 to 13,000 samples of equipment or products each year from the West. Principal customers for these samples were the Ministry of Defense, Military-Industrial Commission, and the State Committee for Science and Technology. Not all these samples were obtained from the U.S., and not all of them were obtained illegally, but a majority probably were. In many cases of illegal technology transfer, the intended end-user is a country whose policies are unfriendly to the United States, but this is not always the case.
Some friendly countries obtain U.S. technology illegally to seek economic advantage.
Various schemes were used to get around the requirement for an export license. Fraudulent end-user certificates were used in many cases. In other cases, military items were declared as civilian, high tech items were declared as low tech, shipping documents were falsified, export licenses were forged, or a partial license was used rather than a full license. By far the most common means of shipping the goods out of the United States was to export them first to a friendly country, then transship them to a proscribed end-user. Half the transshipments during the time period covered by this study were via Europe, most commonly via Germany, Switzerland or the United Kingdom.