Vall Iliev, a 70-year-old resident of Stow, Ohio, has been sentenced to 63 months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Donald C. Nugent. This follows his guilty plea in March to charges of smuggling foreign-made body armor and selling it as domestically-produced certified products to law enforcement agencies and the public. Alongside the prison term, Iliev is required to serve three years of supervised release and pay approximately $5.2 million in restitution.
Court documents reveal that in May 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted a Canadian-registered truck at the Blaine, Washington port of entry carrying over 200 ballistic body armor plates from China. The plates were hidden using “Master Carton Smuggling,” a technique designed to evade detection by port officials. These pre-packaged boxes were intended for delivery to Iliev’s home or businesses—Vallmar Studios and ShotStop—in Stow.
Vallmar Studios functioned as a warehouse where the armor was processed before being sold through the ShotStop website. The armor was marketed as American-made and labeled as certified by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which sets performance standards for ballistic-resistant police body armor under the U.S. Department of Justice.
However, inspectors determined that none of the items met NIJ certification requirements because approved manufacturers are only located within the United States. Investigators found that labels claiming NIJ certification and American manufacturing were added after arrival from China but before sale by ShotStop. Despite claims that products were made in Stow, Ohio, neither Vallmar Studios nor ShotStop had facilities capable of manufacturing body armor.
The investigation was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations Cleveland Office with support from the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Assistant United States Attorney Duncan T. Brown prosecuted the case for the Northern District of Ohio.
