In the Courts

At a first glance, Chogsom is a relatively unremarkable prosecution of two individuals for the exporting stolen vehicles and engaging in a scheme to structure financial transactions in a manner that would elude federal financial reporting requirements. Initially, after a six day jury trial involving twenty nine witnesses, a federal jury convicted Mr. Nikolay Tantchev of a series of charges relating to the stolen cars and using false documents in connection with the financial scheme. The same jury acquitted his associate, Mr. Batmagnai Chogsom of these charges but convicted him of making a false statement to an IRS agent and sentenced him to three years of probation. Mr. Chogsom appealed his conviction.

Tantchev and Chogsom had been working at a warehouse owned by Tantchev in Chicago. In the course of this business, Tantchev's warehouse accepting shipping containers with imports and exports, until it was discovered that some shipments contained stolen vehicles. Subsequent investigation uncovered that the majority of the proceeds from these shipments were then funneled into 22 different bank accounts across Bulgaria, in a financial scheme designed to escape notice. In the course of the investigation into these accounts, an IRS agent had approached Mr. Chogsom and asked him to identify a woman linked to one of the bank accounts. After being presented with an ID photo of the woman in question, Mr. Chogsom informed the authorities that the ID belonged to a “Jianmei Li”, when, in actuality, the ID belonged to Mr. Chogsom's sister — Burmaa Chogsom.