Miami Herald, FL
March 17 2005

Psst, pal, wanna buy some cheap guided missiles?

Any fan of Hollywood B movies expects a hot-tub scene. Our thriller
gets it out of the way early: Page 13 of the rousing 62-page United
States of America versus Armo, Tiko, Soso, Joe, Jabs, Spies, Nikush,
et al.

The FBI’s confidential informant, known only as CI, traveled to a
Brooklyn spa last spring to negotiate with some scoundrels with
nefarious ties to the international arms black market. The meeting
began “first in a sauna, then in a hot tub.”

The movie version, of course, would have added a couple of nearly
naked, beautiful women sloshing about as an arms deal simmered in
roiling water. No mention of skin in the federal complaint released
this week.

Our main villain, Artur Solomonyan, 26, asked as he soaked if CI’s
clients had ”dark skin,” meaning, of course, were they Arab
terrorists.

Solomonyan, an Armenian, and his partner, a 33-year-old South African
known as Spies (as Dave Barry would say, I’m not making this up)
assured the FBI’s own spy that they could supply him with land mines,
rocket- propelled grenade launchers, surface-to-air missiles,
including shoulder-launched Stingers, and a variety of machine guns,
all obtained from leaky armories in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia
and Chechnya. Solomonyan also mentioned enriched uranium that “could
be used in the subway system.”

CI intimated that he was the middle man for some very unsavory
clients, “specifically mentioning foreign and domestic terrorists.”

NO SCRUPLES

These were pure Hollywood-style evildoers, unburdened by
soul-searching, guilt, doubts or anguish. No complicated character
studies here. More like the one-dimensional bad guys on Fox TV’s 24.
“Spies responded that he did not care who purchased the
explosives.”

For more than a year, the FBI monitored 15,000 cellphone
conversations among the gang members. CI traveled from New York to
Los Angeles to South Florida, a place seen by the crooks as a
nurturing, low-risk climate for their criminal enterprise. “Spies
said Florida was a good place to do things.”

Two South Florida men were among those arrested Tuesday when the FBI
trap snapped shut on 17 alleged arms dealers. Joseph Colpani, 53, of
Hollywood, and Michael Demare, 50, of north Miami-Dade were captured
in their not-very-flashy neighborhoods after selling two AK-47s and
promising nastier stuff to come. I’m sure the movie version will
relocate the pair to Star Island.

PUPPY LOVE

The gang had their nicknames, a cinematic touch. And cute code names
for weapons. Machine guns and rocket launchers became toys, condos,
SUVs and puppies.

Can guys who love puppies be so bad?

The FBI’s CI purchased eight assault rifles during the course of the
investigation. What’s unclear is whether the other stuff promised was
so much smoke blown by low-rent hoods, who ran credit-card and
Medicare scams on the side.

Did they really have access to missiles powerful enough to take down
an airliner? Or enriched uranium? Or rocket grenade launchers?

The case is reminiscent of the so-called Russian mobsters who ran
Porky’s, a strip bar in Hialeah. In 1995, they tried to sell
undercover cops, posing as drug smugglers, a Russian submarine. It
was never quite clear how much of that was bravado, how much was a
real possibility.

Not that this latest batch of Soviet-bloc criminals weren’t sinister.
Solomonyan was taped saying he had something unsavory in mind for CI,
who he thought was ”playing with him.” Solomonyan said, “He’ll see
what it means to play.”

His threatening words were pure film noir.

He said the CI “won’t forget me for all his life. He’s gonna
remember me for a while. I’m not joking. You’ll see. I’ve got a
couple plans.”

The gang was nabbed before our tough guy could carry out his threat
— a perfect Hollywood ending.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress