Monday, June 28, 2010

Israeli defense consultant indicted for smuggling weapons to Somalia

Politico/ here

"... Chanoch Miller, an Israeli aeronautical engineer who previously served as an executive with Israel’s Radom Aviation, was indicted on June 17, 2010 on seven counts of conspiring to export defense equipment to an embargoed nation, Somalia, money laundering, providing false end user certificates, and related charges....

Beginning in April, according to the indictment, Miller conspired with his American co-defendant to find an air cargo service to fly hundreds of AK-47s from Bosnia to the Somaliland city of Banderal, using false end user certificates of Chad, in violation of U.S. arms export control laws. Somalia is under a UN arms embargo. But the transport services source they contacted turned out to be an informant for the U.S. Customs and Immigrations Enforcement (ICE) agency, the indictment describes. .....

Miller arranged through the same logistics agent to fly 700 AK-47s from Panama to Somaliland last month.

In February, Somaliland local press cited an Israeli foreign ministry official that Israel was considering recognizing Somaliland as an independent country, ..."

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