New York Daily News
March 16 2005
Gang of arms peddlers held
18 arrested in fed sting
By ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF
Armenian national Artur Solomonyan was one of 18 men collared by the
feds yesterday in an arms smuggling sting.
A New York-based gang allegedly peddling Russian-made surface-to-air
missiles and rocket-propelled grenades was blown away yesterday in an
FBI sting, officials said.
The heavy weapons pipeline stretched from Eastern Europe to the
Brooklyn home of an alleged arms smuggler who once boasted of being
able to get uranium to bomb the subways, authorities said.
Artur Solomonyan, a Armenian national who lives in Sheepshead Bay,
was among 18 men arrested by the feds after a year-long
investigation.
The probe was mounted with the help of a gun-savvy informant who
reeled in the arms dealers posing as a moneyman eager to buy weapons
for Al Qaeda terrorists, officials said.
“The defendants showed they were willing to sell anything to anybody
for the right price,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney David Kelley.
Investigators grabbed Solomonyan, 26, and Christiaan Spies, 33, also
of Sheepshead Bay, Monday night outside the Embassy Suites Hotel in
Battery Park City, police said.
The rest of the alleged dealers were routed from their beds in New
York, Miami and Los Angeles early yesterday.
“This case posted a big ‘Keep Out’ sign for arms traffickers
everywhere,” said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Solomonyan and Spies, a South African, allegedly offered to ship more
than 200 rocket propelled grenade launchers and shoulder-fired
surface-to-air missiles from Armenia and Chechnya to New York, Los
Angeles and Miami.
Solomonyan touted alleged connections to ex-KGB officials and former
military leaders in Chechnya and Georgia willing to sell weapons to
the highest bidder, officials said.
“They had the connections and weapons terrorists need to turn a
deadly dream into a deadly reality,” said Andrew Arena,
agent-in-charge of the FBI’s New York criminal division.
Solomonyan and Spies provided the informant with a Web site and
password to view a catalogue of military hardware, authorities said.
Solomonyan allegedly set the informant up with a host of arms
dealers, and sold him eight weapons – including an Israeli Uzi, SKS
fully automatic assault rifle and AK-47s.
Solomonyan and Spies were arrested before they could travel to Europe
with the phony IDs and green cards provided by the informant,
officials said.
Solomayan was “unbelievably determined to be a major arms dealer,”
said a law enforcement source. “Combine his level of determination
and the arms bazaar in Eastern Europe and you have trouble.”
Afraid that the informant thought he was too young to be a weapons
dealer, Solomonyan also boasted he could get “enriched uranium …
which could be used in the subway,” according to court papers.
But investigators found no evidence that he could make good on the
one-time claim, and uranium was never mentioned again in more than
15,000 intercepted phone calls.
With Melissa Grace and Celeste Katz