New York Post
March 16, 2005
FEDS SMASH MISSILE PLOT
By CARL CAMPANILE, MURRAY WEISS and ANDY GELLER
March 16, 2005 — The feds charged a band of New York arms merchants
yesterday in a chilling million-dollar plot to smuggle thousands of Russian
weapons into the United States – including shoulder-fired missiles capable
of shooting down airliners.
The 17 arrests followed a two-year-long sting in which a patriotic FBI
informant who is a South African munitions expert posed as an arms buyer
with ties to al Qaeda.
“Are you interested in buying weapons?” the arms sellers asked, claiming
they had ties to the Russian mob and rogue members of the Russian military.
“Yes,” the informant replied.
“Are your friends dark-skinned?” the men asked, referring to radical
Muslims.
“Yes,” the informant replied again.
The informant asked for 10 to 20 weapons. The sellers offered to supply
2,000 for at least $2 million.
A law-enforcement official described the informant as a “pure hero” who only
wanted to do the right thing for his adoptive country.
“He risked his life every day,” the official said.
As the months passed, the men sold eight machine guns and assault weapons to
the informant.
They also schemed to smuggle Russian weapons into the country, including
rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Strela SA-7b surface-to-air
shoulder-launched missiles.
According to Jane’s, the respected defense authority, the missiles were used
in the Vietnam and Arab-Israeli wars, resulting in the downing of dozens of
aircraft.
Their simplicity “has also resulted in the widespread distribution of the
weapon to various guerrilla and terrorist groups throughout the world,”
Jane’s said.
The ringleaders, Artur Solomonyan, 26, an Armenian who lives in Brooklyn,
and Christiaan Dewet Spies, 33, a South African, were busted in a Battery
Park City hotel as they prepared to leave for Eastern Europe to carry out
the shipment of the arms, authorities said.
They face up to 30 years behind bars if convicted.
The case “has disrupted a potential overseas pipeline for dangerous military
weaponry to come into the hands of civilians or even terrorists,” said U.S.
Attorney David Kelley.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly agreed, saying, “This case posted a big
‘Keep Out’ sign for arms traffickers everywhere. They’re not welcome,
especially not in New York.”
Kelley said that during the sting, Solomonyan made some outrageous claims.
For example, in one phone conversation, he told the informant that he could
obtain “enriched uranium” and suggested that it could be “used in the subway
system” like a dirty bomb.
But the prosecutor said the claim was more “puffery” than real.
“There was no such uranium. There was never any follow-up. He never
mentioned it again. It was one passing conversation,” he said.
The probe began in early 2003 when the informant, a South African
businessman, met Solomonyan in Texas and was offered weapons.
Earlier, the man had worked for two years for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms helping to bust gun runners in Miami.
After the offer, he immediately went to the ATF office in Dallas and the
investigation was under way. When the ATF realized that national-security
issues were involved, it brought in the FBI.
The probe took investigators to Armenia, South Africa and the former Soviet
republic of Georgia.
It included wiretaps on seven phones in which more than 15,000 calls were
intercepted.
The arms merchants and FBI informant talked about weapons in code – calling
weapons “real estate” and rocket-propelled grenade launchers “fliers.”
At one point, Solomonyan is caught on a phone intercept telling a
co-conspirator in Armenia that weapons would be shipped from Georgia to
Leninaka, a city in Armenia.
He also wanted his uncle in Armenia to help with the operation, the
complaint said.
In a July 8, 2004, conversation with his brother, Solomonyan allegedly said
he would “clip” or keep one of the weapons for himself.
A criminal complaint says the arms merchants sold the informant eight
semi-automatic weapons.
Three were dropped off at a storage facility in lower Manhattan, three in
Los Angeles and two in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the complaint said.
Then, in late February, the men gave the informant digital photos of 17
military weapons they planned to bring into the United States, the complaint
says.
The pictures, which FBI technicians determined had been taken that month,
showed anti-tank missiles, a Russian missile launcher and an anti-tank
rifle.
Solomonyan and Spies were busted Monday night when they met with the
informant at the Embassy Suites hotel in Battery Park City to finalize
details before leaving for Eastern Europe.
Sources said Solomonyan wanted a green card so he could leave and enter the
United States.
He, Spies and three other men were charged with plotting to import the
weapons. The other 13, including Solomonyan’s brother, Levon, 24, who lives
in Los Angeles, were charged with selling the eight assault rifles.
Seventeen of the 18 people charged were in custody yesterday. Two were
arrested in Miami, five in Los Angeles and the rest in New York. One was
still at large.
The FBI is working with Armenian and Russian authorities to secure the
weapons and to arrest the responsible parties abroad.
Solomonyan, who speaks Russian, is in the United States on a valid student
visa, his lawyers said.
“It’s his first arrest. He plans a vigorous defense of the charges,” said
lawyer Louis Fasulo.
Solomonyan lives in Brooklyn and has a girlfriend, said his other lawyer,
Aaron Goldsmith.
The complaint said the informant met Solomonyan and Spies at a Brooklyn spa,
chatting in the sauna and then in the hot tub.
Solomonyan maintained he had contacts with ex-Chechen military members,
ex-KGB members and rogue members of the Russian military who could smuggle
him weapons.
Spies bragged that he had “connections to the Russian mafia in New York and
Los Angeles and was involved in business with these Russian mafia figures,”
the complaint said.
Investigators tapped the cellphones of Solomonyan and Spies, learning that
the service was billed to All Seasons Caterers on East 28th Street in
Brooklyn.
But the probers found no catering hall when they checked the address.