Seven Chinese executives and four of the largest shipping container manufacturers were criminally charged in an antitrust case alleging they engaged in illegal price fixing during the pandemic six years ago, federal prosecutors announced on Tuesday.

The indictment, which was first reported by CBS News, marks the latest in a series of investigations by the Justice Department related to the COVID-19 pandemic, a topic that has long been of interest to President Trump and his allies.

"We are holding these Chinese bad actors accountable for exploiting the pandemic to fill their own coffers," said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward. He said the manufacturers "exploited the crisis and their market power to squeeze the supply chain for profit through coordinated agreements." 

As a result, their actions "dramatically raised the prices of shipping containers" in the lead-up to and during the pandemic, Woodward said.

Omeed Assefi, the acting assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division, said that the indictment was secured in 2025 in the Northern District of California, but remained under seal until one of the defendants — Vick Nam Hing Ma — was apprehended and detained in France in April. His extradition to the U.S. is still pending.

The four companies charged in the case are Singamas Container Holdings Ltd, China International Marine Containers (Group) Co., Ltd., Shanghai Universal Logistics Equipment Co. — also known as Dong Fang Ltd. — and CXIC Group Containers Co., Ltd. 

The other charged individuals are Singamas CEO Siong Seng Teo, CIMC CEO Boliang Mai, CIMC Vice President Tianhua Huang, CIMC General Manager Yongbo Wan, Dong Fang General Manager Qianmin Li and CXIC CEO Yuqiang Zhang.   

Ma, the sole defendant in custody, served as marketing director for Singamas Container Holdings Ltd. 

Assefi said the case impacts about $35 billion of global commerce and the day-to-day lives of Americans who struggled to stock up on goods and supplies during the pandemic. 

"At the height of the Covid pandemic, the defendants lined their own pockets by choking the world's supply of shipping containers," Assefi said.

The Justice Department has been working on a number of criminal investigations related to COVID-19 and its origins, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Last month, federal prosecutors in Maryland brought the first COVID-19 origins case, securing an indictment against David Morens, a former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases employee who is accused of trying to evade Freedom of Information Act requests in connection with COVID-19 research grants. He has pleaded not guilty.

Mr. Trump and Republican lawmakers have frequently assailed Anthony Fauci, the former NIAID director who served as a top adviser during the pandemic. 

They have accused him of suppressing evidence that the coronavirus originated from a scientific lab in Wuhan, China, in order to protect the National Institute of Health's reputation, but they have not cited any evidence to support their accusation.

The heated rhetoric leveled at Fauci later led the federal government to provide him with a security detail, even after he had departed his role. Shortly before Democratic President Joe Biden left office, he granted a pardon to Fauci preemptively, in an effort to insulate him from political retribution he could face in the form of criminal prosecutions.

Woodward suggested that this case was not specifically tied to other Covid-19 origin probes underway by the department, noting that the Antitrust Division does not have jurisdiction over that issue.