New York Times
March 15 2005
Arms Network Is Broken Up, Officials Say
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: March 16, 2005
Law enforcement authorities have broken up a network of international
arms smugglers who sold black-market assault rifles in the United
States and were plotting to import military weapons – including
anti-aircraft missiles and antitank guns – from Eastern Europe,
federal and New York City officials announced yesterday.
The arms dealers sold the weapons to a confidential informer working
with the F.B.I. who told them he was buying the arms for Al Qaeda,
said David N. Kelley, the United States attorney in Manhattan, at a
news conference. Mr. Kelley said the dealers were not associated with
any terrorist organization but were selling the weapons to make
money.
The officials charged that the arms ring was led by Artur Solomonyan,
an Armenian, and Christiaan Dewet Spies, a South African, who have
been living illegally in New York. In cellphone conversations
secretly recorded by the F.B.I., the men said they intended to buy
the more sophisticated weapons primarily from the Russian military
but also from sellers linked to the armed forces in Ukraine and
Georgia, Mr. Kelley said.
Although no terrorists were directly involved, the officials said the
case represented a sobering warning that there were dealers in the
illegal international arms market capable of importing battlefield
weapons to the United States and ready to sell them to terrorists.
“These defendants may not have been terrorists themselves, but
they’ve shown a transparent willingness to do anything with anybody
so long as it generates income for their organization,” said Andrew
Arena, a special agent in charge of the Criminal Division of the
F.B.I. in New York.
Mr. Kelley unsealed a federal criminal complaint for weapons
trafficking yesterday against 18 people he said participated in the
arms network. The two accused ringleaders and 15 other defendants
were arrested by the F.B.I. and the local police Monday night and
yesterday morning in roundups in New York City, Los Angeles and
Miami, the officials said. The remaining defendant, identified as
Armand Abramian, 27, was being sought in California.
Mr. Solomonyan, 26, protested that he was not guilty as he was
escorted yesterday into Federal District Court in Manhattan. “I was
trapped in this thing,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on.” Also
named in the complaint was his brother, Levon, 24.
The arrests came after a yearlong investigation in which the
confidential informer secretly recorded hours of conversations with
the defendants, and the F.B.I. taped more than 15,000 calls on seven
telephones, officials said.
During the year, they said, the arms ring sold the informer eight
illegal weapons, mostly military assault rifles, including two
AK-47’s and an Israeli-made Uzi. The dealers delivered three of the
guns in New York City, three in Los Angeles and two in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., in transactions that were monitored by the F.B.I.
In recent weeks, the defendants made a $2.2 million deal to sell the
informer more powerful, mainly Russian-made weapons, Mr. Kelley said.
They gave the informer photographs of the weapons, which they said
they were holding somewhere in Eastern Europe and were ready to
import by ship to the United States.
The photos, which officials displayed yesterday, included images of
two SA-7b Strella surface-to-air heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles
and a Russian AT-4 Spigot antitank guided missile and launcher.
Early in their discussions, Artur Solomonyan told the informer he
could obtain enriched uranium that could be “used in the subway,” Mr.
Kelley said. But he said the subject was “never followed up,” and
there was no evidence that the arms ring ever trafficked in nuclear
or other weapons of mass destruction. “It never happened,” Mr. Kelley
said.
Mr. Spies, 33, told the informer that he had ties to the Russian
mafia, the complaint says. But none of the defendants are Russian;
they include people from Georgia, Italy and France, as well as
several Americans. Mr. Kelley said that officials suspected they were
buying arms from “rogue folks within Eastern European military
circles” but that it was still not clear whether they were members of
the military or black marketeers.
According to the complaint, the F.B.I. informer began meeting a year
ago with Mr. Spies, whom he had known for several years, and Mr.
Solomonyan.
The arrests began Monday night, when Mr. Solomonyan and Mr. Spies
went to a meeting with the informer in Manhattan, where they had been
told he would give them false immigration green cards so they could
leave the United States to pick up the promised weapons. Instead,
they were met by F.B.I. and New York police agents.