RIA Novosti, Russia
March 19 2005
RUSSIAN TRACE IN U.S. ARMS SMUGGLING SCANDAL?
NEW YORK, March 19 (RIA Novosti’s Alexei Berezin) – An arms dealer
arrested this week in the USA claimed that he could buy grenade
launchers in Russia and then ship them over to the United States by
sea, a source in the New York Attorney’s Office told RIA Novosti on
Friday.
Last Tuesday, U.S. authorities arrested members of an international
arms smuggling ring including nationals of Armenia, Georgia, Russia,
Eastern European countries and South Africa. Most of the detainees
resided in the USA, some of them illegally. Law enforcers named
Armenian Artur Solomonyan, 26, as the ringleader.
The authorities charged 18 individuals with conspiring to smuggle
shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile systems, grenade launchers,
mortars and other weapons into the USA.
“In the course of the talks Solomonyan told a potential buyer that
the weapons would be shipped by sea and delivered to the ports of Los
Angeles, New York and Miami. After the two sides have agreed on the
price, quantity and models of weapons the latter were to be delivered
within two months,” the source from the New York Attorney’s Office
told RIA Novosti.
According to him, when the FBI informer who had posed as an arms
buyer said he was willing to purchase 10-15 shoulder-fired grenade
launchers during his first meeting with Solomonyan, the latter
answered that he and his partners were not interested in selling
small shipments of arms but wanted to sell a batch of two thousand
pieces in one go.
The source said that after the first meeting which took place in a
restaurant the two men met again later in a sauna where Solomonyan
said that he was to obtain the grenade launchers from some former and
acting military officers in Chechnya. In subsequent telephone
conversations Solomonyan said that he could get the weapons from
three different and unrelated sources.
The FBI spokesman Andy Arena pointed out at a press conference on
Tuesday that the detainees did not belong to any terrorist
organization.
Each of the suspects is facing charges carrying imminent prison terms
of 5 to 30 years.