By: Richard L. Smith
Federal prosecutors have charged an Indonesian jewelry company and several of its executives in a sweeping scheme that allegedly evaded more than $86 million in U.S. customs duties and tariffs on over $1.2 billion in imported jewelry, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced that Icha Anastasia, 37, of Surabaya, Indonesia, and Claudio Fogale, 51, of Mussolente, Italy, were arrested last week and charged in Newark federal court with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Both defendants were detained following their initial appearance. A third defendant, Michael Yahya—identified as a co-owner of UBS Gold—remains in Indonesia and has not yet been taken into custody.
Investigators say the defendants carried out the scheme through UBS Gold, a major Indonesian jewelry manufacturer that shipped more than $1.2 billion in product to the United States between 2021 and 2025.
Prosecutors allege the company used two overlapping methods to avoid paying required duties and tariffs.
After Indonesia lost its duty-free trade benefits at the end of 2020, UBS Gold allegedly began routing jewelry through Jordan and falsely claiming it was produced there, allowing the company to bypass U.S. import duties.
When the United States later imposed broader tariffs on goods from multiple countries, the group allegedly escalated the operation—shipping scrap gold to Jordan while secretly swapping it for Indonesian-made jewelry. 
That jewelry was then falsely declared as U.S.-manufactured to avoid the new tariffs.
According to prosecutors, these schemes allowed UBS Gold and its U.S. customers to evade approximately $86.4 million in duties and tariffs from 2021 through October 2025.