By Tom Hardesty
The Summiteer

The legal troubles for former Stow body armor company ShotStop Ballistics and its owner, Vall Iliev, are deepening.

Iliev, 69, of Stow, who owned ShotStop Ballistics until it ceased operations in early 2024, has been charged with three counts of smuggling defective Chinese-made body armor from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and then selling it to law enforcement agencies and others as legitimate, domestically made certified products. The charges were made in the United States Northern District of Ohio Court.

ShotStop Ballistics, which was headquartered at 1000 Campus Dr. #300 in Stow, had billed itself as a maker and supplier of ballistic plates, body armor and related products for law enforcement and the military nationwide.

However, according to a Feb. 26 press release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio, from around 2017 to October 2023 Iliev allegedly imported counterfeit body armor from Chinese manufacturers and sold it under claims of being made in the United States and bearing a falsified trademarked label.

Prosecutors say that the PRC shipments would initially arrive at Vallmar Studios LLC, located at 4319 Lorwood Dr. in Stow, a company which Iliev also owned and operated. Investigators found that Vallmar’s business location was used as a warehouse to process the PRC-manufactured body armor before selling it to the public through Iliev’s second business, ShotStop Ballistics.

Prosecutors allege that Iliev instructed employees at his Vallmar Studios facility to place labels on the smuggled Chinese body armor plates that read “Made in Stow, Ohio” before going on sale to agencies that rely on ballistic-resistant body armor for life-saving protection.

The case is being investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Cleveland Office alongside the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, with assistance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Allegations that ShotStop Ballistics’ supposedly protective equipment was actually counterfeit and put those who wore it at risk prompted state and federal officials to raid ShotStop’s Stow facility in October 2023. They seized all of the company’s inventory, which included thousands of Chinese-produced body armor plates.

That was followed by a November 2023 warning from the Department of Homeland Security to law enforcement agencies nationwide that ShotStop Ballistics body armor purchased after 2018 was not up to national safety standards.

ShotStop ceased operations in March 2024 and filed for bankruptcy two months later. The Stow Police Department and City of Munroe Falls were among 56 customers that filed warranty claims last October against ShotStop in its Chapter 7 liquidation proceedings.