"It is a mystery how the arms landed safely in America through three points at once – New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, despite tightened border controls and unprecedented anti-terrorism measures adopted by American special services in recent years."
Not so difficult a mystery when you consider that the Port of Houston is very proud of its security procedures that include only screening 1 of every eight cargo containers that arrive in the port. Of course, that is much better than the national average of just over five percent screening of cargo containers. or that Dubai recently became the only port in an Arab nation to join the U.S. cargo container verification and tracking program. David Bier http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=555189 United States Intercepts Russian Missiles // Arms smuggling A huge scandal has flared up in the United States over illegal shipments of Russian arms involving an international group of smugglers. Yesterday the American authorities brought accusations against 18 people, most of them natives of the former USSR. The exposure of a network of smugglers offering weapons of every sort on the American black market, from submachine guns and grenade launchers to antiaircraft missiles, was the result of a unique, yearlong FBI investigation. At a press conference in New York, U.S. Attorney David Kelly gave the details of this detective story, in which not only Russians, Armenians, and Georgians appear, but also immigrants from South Africa. According to Kelly, American special services succeeded in uncovering and arresting an international band of smugglers headed by Armenian Artur Solomonian and South African Christiaan Dewet Spies, who are based in New York. Police captured both of them on Monday night at a Manhattan hotel where the leaders of the criminal group had arrived to approve the terms of a new deal with a potential buyer who was an FBI informant. According to Kelly, the mainly Russian arms smuggled into the U.S. were acquired in Georgia, Armenia, and certain Eastern European countries. It is a mystery how the arms landed safely in America through three points at once – New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, despite tightened border controls and unprecedented anti-terrorism measures adopted by American special services in recent years. As Kelly reported, before their arrest, the smugglers managed to sell eight machine guns and other kinds of automatic weapons, including AK-47's and Israeli Uzis. According to information in the American media, the smugglers were exposed as a result of a yearlong special operation in which FBI agents actively assisted their counterparts in Armenia, Georgia, and South Africa. The investigators had tapes of 15 000 telephone calls intercepted in recent months at their disposal, which gives an idea of the scale of the operation. They were able to pick up the trail of the criminal group after an informer of the American special services reported his contact with people who had access to Russian-made arms and wanted to sell them at a profit in the United States. At the same time, the informer was shown photographs of pieces of military equipment. The ample opportunities available to the smugglers and the scale of their operations are shown by the fact that, besides rifles, the goods they offered included grenade launchers, antitank shells, and shoulder-held antiaircraft systems. According to a report on the American Fox News, the smugglers were expecting to get $2 million just for homing missiles delivered to the United States. At the same time, the New York Times in its version of the story wrote that the unsuspecting Solomonian offered to sell the FBI informers enriched uranium, which he claimed could be used in terrorists attacks in the New York subway. However, the story that the smugglers had uranium was subsequently not confirmed and was dropped. Kelly spoke of this at his press conference yesterday. If found guilty, Solomonian and Spies face a prison sentence of up to 30 years. The other accused could get from 5 to 20 years. It is interesting that the scandal over Russian-made weapons, including shoulder-held antiaircraft missile systems smuggled into the United States, broke out soon after the summit of the presidents of Russia and the United States, Vladimir Putin and George Bush, in Bratislava. Among other things, they discussed the sensitive topic of trade in shoulder-held antiaircraft missile systems, in particular the possibility of their ending up in the hands of international terrorists. The American side had previously expressed its concerns to Moscow more than once that this type of Russian weapon, which could be used to carry out major terrorist acts, especially to shoot down planes, might end up in the hands of "unreliable persons". Then new evidence appeared yesterday that the Americans' concerns were not unfounded. by Sergey Strokan Russian Article as of Mar. 17, 2005 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/_OLuKD/8WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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