Free Republic

Iran's Oil Mafia April 16, 2007 Frontpagemagazine.com Hassan Daioleslam Robert William (Bob) Ney is a current federal prisoner and a former Ohio Congressman from 1995 until November 3, 2006. Ney pled guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in relation to the Jack Abramoff lobbying and bribery scandal. Ney reportedly received bribes from Abramoff, other lobbyists, and two foreign businessmen - a felon and an arms dealer - in exchange for using his position to advance their interests. Conspicuously missing from this dossier of disservice to the country was Ney’s assistance in the creation of a Washington-based lobbying...

May 29, 2008 By Andrew Walden (Hawai'i Free Press) Nadhmi Auchi, seen here with the Governor of Illinois, Rob Blagojevich (middle) at a 2004 Chicago dinner in Auchi's honor arranged by Antonin Rezko (potentially, right)[1]. All three men have been convicted of corruption related charges (Auchi 2003, Rezko 2008, Blagojevich 2009).[2] “A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser (dual US-Syrian citizen Tony Rezko) just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi,...

On a grainy undercover videotape recorded in a hotel room in Tbilisi, Georgia, an Iranian arms merchant chats with two Philadelphia salesmen who have brought samples of their military wares. The merchant, Amir Hossein Ardebili, who has flown from Tehran to make a deal, patiently answers the Americans' questions. The radar microchips? Needed for antimissile protection. The sophisticated computers? Essential to "launch the F-4" fighter. All of it, he says flatly, is destined for the Iranian military "because they think the war is coming." Against the United States. The videotape, recorded in October 2007 by undercover federal agents from Philadelphia,...

WASHINGTON - Federal authorities today revealed a major international undercover sting in which Philadelphia-based federal agents arrested an Iranian arms dealer in Eastern Europe and secretly extradited him to the United States. The Iranian, who has been quietly jailed in a Philadelphia-area prison for nearly two years, pleaded guilty to charges in 2008, officials disclosed today. The case had been sealed from public view while U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents scoured the dealer's laptop to pursue hundreds of leads about Iran's covert effort to acquire American military gear, law-enforcement sources said. "This guy was very prolific - there...

Note: The following text is a quote: Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, November 23, 2009 Arms Dealer Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Supply U.S. Fighter Jet Engines to Iran Jacques Monsieur, a Belgian national and resident of France suspected of international arms dealing for decades, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama to conspiracy to illegally export F-5 fighter jet engines and parts from the Untied States to Iran. Monsieur along with Dara Fotouhi, aka Dara Fatouhi, an Iranian national currently living in France, was charged in a...

Monzer al-Kassar, 63, a longtime resident of Spain known as the "Prince of Marbella" for his lifestyle in the glitzy seaside town, was sentenced after being convicted in November of agreeing to sell millions of dollars of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Ever heard of Nahmdi Auchi? Mr. Auchi was the financier for long-time Barak Obama friend and fund-raiser Tony Rezko. Mr. Auchi is the cousin of Saddam Hussein and his co-conspirator in the 1959 failed assassination attempt of the Iraqi Prime Minister. Although he eventually left Iraq in 1981 and became a British citizen, Auchi prospered mightily under Saddam, becoming a billionaire and pillar of British society (He ranks 279 on the Forbes list of the richest people) He was convicted of committing fraud in France in 2004 (only had to pay a fine) and has been barred from entering the...

A suspected international arms dealer was arrested yesterday in Spain and charged with conspiracy to sell millions of dollars in weapons to a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization in Colombia to kill Americans. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Karen P. Tandy said Syrian national Monzer Al Kassar, 61, of Marbella, Spain, along with suspects Tareq Mousa Al Ghazi, 60, of Lebanon, and Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, 58, also of Marbella, were arrested as they prepared to finalize a multimillion-dollar deal with the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to pay for the weapons. Mr. Kassar was arrested...

WASHINGTON -- A federal criminal investigation has uncovered evidence that the government of Pakistan has made clandestine purchases of US high-technology components for use in its nuclear weapons program in defiance of American law. Federal authorities also say the highly specialized equipment at one point passed through the hands of an arms dealer in Islamabad, Pakistan, named Humayun Khan, who they say has ties to Islamic militants.

A Singapore arms dealer who federal agents said came to San Diego to buy rifles he wanted to illegally export to Indonesia was arrested Monday by undercover agents in a sting operation. Chia Kia Cheng, 60, also known as Ronald “K.C.” Chia, is scheduled to be arraigned in San Diego federal court today on charges of trying to illegally export two M-4 automatic rifles. The case began in 1999, when Cheng met an undercover customs agent who was posing as a weapons dealer at an arms expo in Washington, D.C., according to court documents. In e-mails and phone calls after...

VETERAN PAKISTANI ARMS DEALER CONVICTED IN PLOT TO ILLEGALLY EXPORT U.S. FIGHTER JET COMPONENTS TO MIDDLE EAST SAN DIEGO – -- United States Attorney Carol C. Lam announced that today a federal jury in San Diego found Arif Ali Durrani guilty of multiple violations of the Arms Export Control Act. Specifically, the jury convicted Durrani of four counts of Exporting Defense Articles Without a License and one count of Conspiracy to Commit Offenses Against the United States. According to Assistant United States Attorney William Cole, who prosecuted the case, the evidence at trial established that Durrani intentionally conspired with other...

Monday, March 8, 2004 Jurors Want New Plea in Roswell Case By Scott Sandlin, Journal Staff Writer The jury that acquitted the Canadian owner of an anti-terrorism training school near Roswell in November says his co-defendant should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea. Jurors in the high-profile case against David Hudak and his firm, High Energy Access Tools Inc., wrote to "beseech" Senior U.S. District Judge John Edwards Conway to "redress an injustice that the resolution USA v. Hudak did not right" by letting Michael Payne withdraw his plea. If Conway agreed— and he hasn't been formally asked— Payne...

HOUSTON — One evening two winters ago, a man in Staten Island, N.Y., absent-mindedly flipped through his mail. Inside one envelope was a stack of fake documents, including United Nations (news - web sites) and Defense Department identification cards, and a note: "We would hate to have this fall into the wrong hands."

An alleged missile broker arrested in New Jersey suggested to his buyer that the weapons be launched simultaneously against 15 U.S. jetliners and offered to deliver a radioactive "dirty bomb" for use against Americans, federal authorities said yesterday. Prosecutors announced the new allegations after a grand jury sitting in Newark returned a five-count indictment against the man, Hemant Lakhani. The 69-year-old London resident was arrested Aug. 12 at a hotel near Newark Liberty International Airport after he thought he had delivered an Igla shoulder-fired missile to a Somali terrorist who said he wanted to down U.S. planes. Officials said the...