Here's the entire article from the AP (funny that one of the defendants is named "Spies")

Immigrant accused of weapons-smuggle plot
MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press

NEW YORK - Federal prosecutors charged Tuesday that a 26-year-old Armenian immigrant led a plot to sell military weapons to an FBI informant posing as a middleman for terrorists.

Other law enforcement officials, however, cast doubt on the danger posed by Artur Solomonyan and his associates, who allegedly claimed to be able to deliver rocket-propelled grenades, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and other arms from the former Soviet Union.

"It's unclear if they were ever able to deliver on their promise on bringing weapons of war into the United States," said one law enforcement official familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They were earnest about trying to get them. They just never succeeded, and there was no indication they would be able to succeed."

U.S. Attorney David Kelley said in an interview Tuesday that Solomonyan, his South African partner, Christiaan Dewet Spies, and their associates were serious threats who demonstrated a clear ability and intent to sell military weaponry to the FBI informant.

The informant, a South African living in Texas, told the defendants he had ties to al-Qaida, officials said.

"No one's saying they're the biggest arms dealers, but they demonstrated an ability to obtain military weaponry and destructive devices, and we followed that investigative lead," Kelley said. "We've taken some very bad people off the street."

At least 17 people were arrested in the Los Angeles area, Florida and New York in connection with the case.

Solomonyan, Spies and seven other defendants were ordered held without bail Tuesday for allegedly conspiring to transport destructive devices, among other charges.

Solomonyan's attorney, Louis Fasulo, said: "He's planning a vigorous defense."

Spies' attorney declined to comment as he left federal court in Manhattan.

The informant contacted federal investigators last year after Spies offered to obtain explosives and machine guns from his contacts in Russian organized crime, according to a criminal complaint.

The gang of Armenians, Georgians, Russians and Americans arranged the sale of eight assault weapons during the investigation, the complaint said.

They also gave the informant access to a password-protected Web site with pictures of military weaponry that included the anti-aircraft missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, a mortar launcher and recoilless anti-tank guns, the complaint alleges.

Investigators said Solomonyan was recorded on wiretaps talking with associates in the United States and the former Soviet Union about obtaining the military weapons.

Solomonyan claimed he could obtain enriched uranium that "could be used in the subway system," the complaint alleges. Kelley said he did not believe Solomonyan could get uranium.

Solomonyan and Spies, 33, were arrested at a Manhattan hotel Monday night as they met with the FBI informant, who had said he was bringing green cards so the suspects, who are illegal aliens, could travel to obtain the weapons overseas, officials said.

Solomonyan entered the United States six years ago on a cultural exchange visa claiming he was a religious worker for the Church of Scientology, according to law enforcement officials, also speaking on condition of anonymity. He was living on the proceeds of Medicare fraud and other scams as he carried out the weapons scheme, the officials said.

From: Sten-Arne Zerpe <zerpe@invalid.invalid>
Subject: Re: Who is arrested smuggler - Scientologist Artur Solomonyan?
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:12:46 +0100
Organization: Zerpe
Message-ID: <gg8g31t3hcdiotimqfo68g5qgtoqsff4ss@News.Individual.NET>

Interesting. Here's more about the "religious worker for the Church of Scientology" Artur Solomonyan. One might wonder hwne the crime cult connections will really be revealed in total.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- U.S. authorities on Tuesday announced the arrests of more than a dozen men on charges of attempting to smuggle Russian-made military weapons into the United States for sale to terrorists.

Eighteen men of various nationalities were charged by federal prosecutors for attempting to smuggle into the country arms that ranged from shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, U.S. Attorney David Kelly said at a news conference in New York.

The identity of the potential buyers of the arms was unknown, authorities said.

The defendants were arrested late Monday and early Tuesday inside the United States, where they allegedly plotted the illegal sales. They were charged in a 62-page complaint with conspiring to traffic in machine guns and other weapons, and allegedly sold eight automatic weapons to a paid confidential informant who posed as an arms trafficker, authorities said.

"It appears the defendants were planning to obtain that weaponry through contacts they had developed in Eastern European military circles," Kelley said. "We are now working with our counterparts overseas to secure the weapons and to bring to justice conspirators who may be abroad."

"These defendants may not have been terrorist themselves, but they have showed transparent willingness to do anything with anybody, so long as it generates money for their organization," added FBI Special Agent Andy Arena at the news conference.

The arrests resulted from a yearlong undercover investigation by the FBI that included wiretaps of some 15,000 telephone calls.

The defendants are predominantly Armenian, Russian, and Georgian. The group's alleged ringleaders -- Artur Solomonyan, 26, from Armenia and Christian Spies, 33, of South Africa -- were among the 10 suspects arrested in the New York area.

Six suspects were arrested in Los Angeles and two others were arrested in south Florida.

All suspects were due to make their first court appearances before federal judges later Tuesday.

Solomonyan and Spies, who were in the U.S. illegally, were arrested Monday night at a Manhattan hotel, where they believed the informant was going to provide them with "green cards" enabling them to leave and re-enter the United States.

According to the criminal complaint, the conspirators offered the informant a shopping list of available weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), shoulder-fired "Stinger" missiles, Russian-made AK-47 assault rifles and Claymore mines, a type of explosive.

Solomonyan at one time told the informant that he could also obtain enriched uranium, which he suggested could be used in the New York subway system, according to the complaint.

"There was never, however, any such uranium," Kelley said at the news conference.

Solomonyan and Spies allegedly gave the informant a password to a Russian Web site where he viewed 17 digital photos of available weapons, and Solomonyan discussed importing 200 RPGs from Armenia as recently as January, according to the complaint.

In phone calls and meetings, the alleged conspirators used code words to discuss the weaponry. "Fliers" meant RPGs, while "toys," "puppies," "condos" and "SUVs" were code for machine guns, according to the complaint.

Solomonyan told the informant that the "fliers" were from Russian military surplus in Chechyna, according to the complaint.

The alleged conspirators met around New York City and were under surveillance in restaurants and at least once in a Brooklyn steam bath.

Despite the talk of high-end explosives, prosecutors allege only eight machine guns were delivered between last September and December -- three each in New York and Los Angeles and two in Fort Lauderdale, Florida -- to warehouses rented by the informant.

Videotaped evidence shows the informant giving Solomonyan $3,000 for the first two machine guns, while the prices for later sales were in the same range, according to the complaint.

The attempted sales of shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and rocket-propelled grenades never went beyond the discussion phase, and those weapons never entered the United States from abroad, the complaint says.

The sting began when Spies - the South African defendant -- told the informant he had connections to Russian mafia figures who wanted to sell weapons they could obtain from former KGB officials. The informant said he had $2.5 million to spend.

-----------------------------------------------------------

From: "Mark Bunker" <markbunker@cox.net>
Subject: Some more names of Weapons Smugglers

Any of these guys on the bridge?

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2764606,00.html

Valley link in weapons sales

Feds say ring smuggled arms

By Jason Kandel, Staff Writer

Members of a Russian-Armenian organized crime ring, including six suspects from the San Fernando Valley, have been charged with plotting to smuggle $2.5 million in black-market military weapons into the United States, federal officials said Tuesday. The suspects sold the weapons -- including rocket-propelled grenade launchers, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and other Russian military weapons -- to an FBI informant who posed as an arms trafficker with connections to al-Qaida, officials said.

Although the weapons are of the type that homeland-security experts fear could be used by terrorists, officials said the suspects were smuggling the arms for profit.

"They didn't care who they were selling to," said Paul Browne, a spokesman for New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. "They were motivated purely by greed, and they'll go to jail for that."

Browne said the investigation into the weapons operation began about a year ago as part of a probe into medical-insurance and credit-card fraud schemes being run by an organized crime syndicate.

Using wiretaps on seven phones and intercepting 15,000 conversations, investigators tracked the suspects to South Africa, Armenia and the Georgian Republic, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The two accused of being ringleaders -- Artur Solomonyan, an Armenian, and Christiaan Dewet Spies, a South African, both living illegally in New York -- and 15 other suspects were arrested Monday night and Tuesday morning in roundups in New York City, Los Angeles and Miami, officials said.

Among those arrested were Garegin Gasparyan, 28, of Burbank; Tigran Gevorgyan, 21, of Glendale; William Thomas, of Los Angeles; Artur Solomonyan, 26, who has homes in New York and Van Nuys; and Solomonyan's brother Levon, 24.

Police still were searching for Armand Abramian, 27, of Glendale.

According to the criminal complaint, the smuggling ring sold the informant eight illegal weapons -- most of them military assault rifles, including two AK-47s and an Israeli-made Uzi machine gun. The dealers delivered three of the guns in New York City, three in Los Angeles and two in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

In recent weeks the suspects made a $2.5 million deal to sell the informant more powerful weapons, mainly Russian-made, officials said. The suspects were accused of giving the informant photographs of the weapons and saying they were holding them somewhere in Eastern Europe and were ready to get them shipped to the United States.

The photographs of the weapons were displayed at a news conference held Monday in New York City.

Los Angeles Police Department officers say they have noticed a spike in Russian-Armenian organized crime, especially in medical-insurance and credit-card fraud, but not in military weapons.

"We've never had this type of case in Los Angeles," said Cmdr. Mark Leap, the second in command in the LAPD's Critical Incident Management Bureau.

"It's certainly a concern that people would sell these types of weapons strictly for profit, and they don't care who they sell them to. That's one of the challenges of law enforcement -- to uncover these kinds of conspiracies and make sure the weapons don't fall into the hands of terrorists."

From: "Feisty" <sunny@skytoday.com>
Subject: SA Probing US arms-deal arrest (Scientologist Artur Solomonyan)
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 21:30:22 GMT

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1678027,00.html

SA probing US arms-deal arrest
17/03/2005 17:25 - (SA)
Click here
Related Articles
# Arms dealers marked by SA spy
# SA man held for US arms deals

Johannesburg - United States and South African authorities are working together to establish whether a man arrested in New York on weapons-smuggling charges is South African, said a US embassy spokesperson.

"We are working with the South African authorities to get background information for the US attorney's office," said Judi Moon.

A man reported to be South African was arrested with 17 other people in New York earlier this week and, according to an affidavit handed to the United States magistrate in the southern district court of New York to secure the necessary arrest warrants.

The men now face four charges under US weapons laws.

Moon said they were trying to confirm with local authorities if the man was, indeed, South African and also wanted to check his documentation.

Must ask for diplomatic contact

Earlier, the department of foreign affairs said the consulate-general in New York was in touch with US authorities, but that in terms of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a detainee must ask to contact his diplomatic or consular mission when he is arrested.

According to the affidavit, the man, identified as Christiaan Dewet Spies, also known as "David", faced charges of possessing, transporting and dealing in firearms as well as conspiring to do so.

His arrest related to a federal bureau of investigation probe into the illegal activities of Russian and other eastern European organised crime groups in the New York City area.

The investigation had been probing people involved in illegal arms trafficking in the city's metropolitan area, as well as in Los Angeles in California and Miami in Florida.

Spies and others allegedly had been "actively preparing" to import rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, surface-to-air missiles and other military weapons and explosive devices into the US for sale to an informant identified as "CI".

News reports said the informant was a South African, but although the affidavit gave no details of the informant it included Afrikaans among the languages recorded in so-called wire taps during the investigation. Other languages were Armenian and Russian.

The group allegedly helped arrange the importation of weapons into the US, using links including former KGB agents.

Spies's main contact was allegedly an Armenian called Artur Solomonyan.

Cops liaising with foreign affairs

The FBI allegedly recovered eight firearms Solomonyan and Spies sold to the informant.

Director Sally de Beer of the SA police said they were liaising with the department of foreign affairs.

The Institute of Security Studies (ISS) said that, if it wanted to, the South African government could invoke the National Convention on Arms Control Act which prohibited illegal arms brokering.

According to Sarah Meek, head of the ISS arms management programme, the act had extra-territorial powers and enabled authorities to arrest South Africans internationally.

Edited by Iaine Harper

From: "Feisty" <sunny@skytoday.com>
Subject: Govt liaises on US arms arrest (Scientologist Artur Solomonyan)
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 21:35:24 GMT

http://iafrica.com/news/sa/816318.htm

JOHANNESBURG
Govt liaises on US arms arrest
Posted Thu, 17 Mar 2005

South Africa's Consulate General in New York is looking into the reported arrest of a South African there on weapons smuggling charges, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday.

The department had not yet been officially informed of the arrest by US authorities, a statement said.

"In terms of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the detainee must request contact with the diplomatic/consular mission upon his arrest."

Once confirmation of the arrest is received, arrangements will be made for consular access.

According to reports, Christiaan Dewet Spies was arrested with at least 17 other people in an FBI undercover operation at a hotel in Manhattan, New York, earlier this week.

Informant reportedly arrested when delivering green cards

The reports said Spies (33) and an Armenian, Artur Solomonyan, as well as a number of others allegedly conspired to transport weapons of war.

The informant was reportedly a South African living in Texas and was arrested when he was delivering green cards to enable the team to travel to fetch the weapons.

Spies reportedly entered the US on a tourist visa in 1999 and was also appealing a deportation order that came after his arrest on a drug possession charge.

It was not clear exactly which weapons were involved, but reports referred to links with Russia.

Weapons possibly from Eastern Europe

A researcher at the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) told Sapa that the weapons could be surplus weapons from Eastern Europe and Russia.

Sarah Meek, head of the ISS arms management programme, said there did not immediately appear to be an African weapons connection apart from Spies' origin.

"It looks like a motley crew of Armenian and Eastern Europeans."

"Not just South Africa"

Referring to the recent arrests of South Africans relating to international arms investigations Meek said that South Africa should not be singled out.

"There are individuals would will try to get around legislation...but security agencies seem to be pretty much on top of it," Meek said.

"You will always have someone doing it for money. It is a global network. If you are there and you have the right contacts you can get into it, it's not just South Africa."

She added that if it wanted to, the South African government could invoke the National Convention on Arms Control Act which prohibits illegal arms brokering. The act had extra-territorial powers and enabled authorities to arrest South Africans internationally.

Armscor has no record of Spies

Arms procurement agency Armscor said that it had run a human resources check on Spies, in response to media enquiries, and found no record of him.

"We pulled all the records and we don't know such a person," Armscor spokesperson Billy Nell told Sapa.

Denel spokesperson Sam Basch said that they were currently going through the human resource and pension records at all their subsidiaries for mention of Spies.

Spies reportedly remains in US custody.

# Recently two Randburg engineering company directors were arrested on charges of possessing components for weapons of mass destruction, allegedly linked to Libya's now abandoned nuclear weapons programme.

Sapa

Related Articles: SA man faces weapons charges in the US

From: "Feisty" <sunny@skytoday.com>
Subject: Psst, pal, wanna buy some cheap guided missiles? (Scientologist Artur Solomonyan)
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 21:43:50 GMT

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11155381.htm

Posted on Thu, Mar. 17, 2005 Click here to find out more!

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: "Feisty" <sunny@skytoday.com>
Subject: Sting sheds light on US security efforts (Scientologist Artur Solomonyan)
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 21:52:45 GMT

http://www.bakutoday.net/view.php?d=12884

Arms-smuggling sting sheds light on US security efforts

By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monit 17/03/2005 11:38

Federal authorities indict 18 men in the latest effort to keep deadly weapons away from would-be terrorists in the US

Call it one of the unfortunate legacies of a militarized world: a for-sale sign - no questions asked - for rocket-propelled grenade launchers, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, and automatic weapons of all makes and models.

Many of these weapons originate from Eastern European armories, part of the stockpile from the cold war. Others may have a questionable pedigree, perhaps part of a shipment of US arms to an unstable part of the world. And some of the arms dealers may still be wearing uniforms or be just retired.

"There is an ongoing problem of military weapons that have gotten loose from the former communist states," says Matthew Bunn, an arms expert at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. "Not only the garden-variety guns like AK-47s, but also RPGs and military-grade explosives that have fallen into the hands of criminals and terrorists."

The link between freelancing arms dealers and terrorism became more of a reality Tuesday after the government said it had indicted 18 men who had allegedly agreed to sell deadly weapons to what they thought was a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda. The buyer was actually a paid confidential FBI informant.

According to the indictment, the sellers claimed they could buy an arsenal of weapons that ranged from antitank munitions to surface-to-air missiles. They claimed the weapons would be former Russian-made ordnance. One of the alleged leaders of the ring, Artur Solomonyan, was from Armenia, where US officials are now working with local authorities to try to secure the weapons.

At a press conference announcing the indictments, David Kelley, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the United States was working with foreign governments to try shut down the ring. "It appears to be some rogue folks in the Eastern European military circles we're dealing with," said Mr. Kelley. "It's hard to say at this point whether [the weapons] coming directly out of the military or some sort of black market."

Weapons experts are not surprised that some of the goods might be coming from Armenia. "Armenia has a lot of weapons that are not in use," says Uri Raanen, director of Boston University's Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy. "I don't know for a fact if Armenia is involved, but it had a suspicious billion-dollar arms deal with Russia, and now there is a lot of weaponry not in use."

But it's not just Armenia, says Mr. Bunn. For example, in the former Soviet republic of Moldova, he says organized crime has access to military-grade weapons. "The criminals can do what they want, and they make major shipments of arms and drugs."

Security experts say the bust this week shows that the nation still has to be vigilant.

"If these people are so inclined, they can get weapons to carry out serious attacks," says John Cohen, senior homeland policy adviser to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. "It's very scary that there continues to be an open market for these types of weapons, and it clearly has to be one of our top priorities to do something about them."

According to the indictment, the alleged smugglers claimed they could deliver their weapons in two months to the ports of Los Angeles, Miami, or New York.

Yet security experts believe that port security has been tightened substantially. "There are all kinds of ways of checking on containers," says Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "At this end, there is a fairly rigorous effort at the ports. It's not necessarily all that easy."

Indeed, US authorities have made some progress in shutting down this kind of activity. Last August, two leaders in a Albany, N.Y., mosque were arrested in a government sting operation for allegedly trying to buy a shoulder-fired missile and assassinate a Pakistani diplomat. Sting operations have also been conducted in Houston, San Diego, and Newark, N.J.

This latest sting began last March when the informant alleged to the FBI that a South African man, Christiaan Dewet Spies, said he connections to the Russian mafia in New York and Los Angeles. The informant told Mr. Spies he was interested in buying 10 to 15 rocket-propelled grenade launchers. According to federal authorities, Spies said he was interested only in selling 2,000 RPGs at a time.

The government alleges that Spies then introduced the informant to his contact, Mr. Solomonyan, in a Manhattan restaurant. The informant indicated he was willing to spend $2.5 million.

Their next meeting was in a sauna and hot tub at a Brooklyn spa. And by last summer, the meetings increased. It was then that Solomonyan is alleged to have offered enriched uranium, which the indictment says, "could be used in the subway system."

But US officials doubt there was any uranium. "It was not followed up ... uranium was never discussed again," said Kelley.

According to the indictment, the defendants indicated they could not leave the country to get larger weapons because they were in the US illegally. The FBI's source said he could get them a "green card," a permanent resident card. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services provided the FBI with green cards.

On Monday night, Solomonyan and Spies showed up, evidently to get green cards. Instead, they were packed off to jail.

From: idaj00
Subject: Re: Sting sheds light on US security efforts (Scientologist Artur Solomonyan)
Date: 17 Mar 2005 15:38:00 -0800

This revelation makes one wonder how many other Scientologists have entered the US claiming to be a "religious" worker for the cult.

I reported Antje Victore the German Scientologist who sought "refugee" status (and recieved same) in the US. I referred to the Stern Magazine article (Hamburg,Germany) which revealed the fraudulent and deceptive claims made to recieve entry to US. I later read where her hope to leave Germany was because she had huge unpaid debts there. I do not know if that was her reason.

I followed up Judge Creppy;s suggestion but did not get a response . I felt her purpose appeared to be conspiracy to commit fraud. Evidently immigration felt differently as she was allowed in and may still be here.

The last I heard she was doing menial labor in Clearwater, Fla. evidently at their Org there.

Ida SP82

"You must have crossed the river to tell the crocodile he has bad breath" - Chinese proverb

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