Posted on 12/03/2009 11:16:06 AM PST by AuntB
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, was released yesterday as the case against Ardebili was unsealed in federal court in Wilmington - nearly two years after the Iranian was secretly brought to the United States.
U.S. officials said the case, first reported by The Inquirer on Wednesday, offers a window into Iran's covert effort to obtain U.S. military technology to bolster its armed forces.
"There is no question that there is an orchestrated effort by the government of Iran to acquire weapons in violation of our laws," said John Morton, assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security for Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE). "This is serious business, not a flash in the pan. Unfortunately, there's a whole network of these guys out there trying to get weapons and sophisticated technology, and not just for Iran."
ICE undercover agents in Philadelphia and Europe ran the three-year sting, which was kept secret as federal agents used data retrieved from Ardebili's laptop to launch dozens of Iranian arms-sales investigations against U.S. and overseas companies.
The court filings unsealed yesterday, including the videotape, show that Ardebili, a former Iranian government procurement officer, was arrested in Georgia in early October 2007. After legal proceedings in Georgia, Ardebili was secretly extradited to the United States in January 2008 and quietly jailed in Philadelphia. A prominent Wilmington defense lawyer, Edmund D. Lyons, was appointed to represent him.
During a closed hearing in Wilmington in May 2008, Ardebili pleaded guilty to violating the arms embargo, the arms export control laws, conspiracy, and money laundering.
He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 14 before U.S. District Judge Gregory M. Sleet in Wilmington. According to federal sentencing guidelines, Ardebili could face more than 10 years in prison.
Lyons, his lawyer, has argued in a court filing that Ardebili should be sentenced to time served. He said Ardebili had admitted he broke U.S. law but did so while in Iran, where his actions are not considered a crime.
Lyons also said the Iranian had suffered in U.S. custody because he is housed in a special unit of the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center, where he is confined 23 hours a day. He has lost teeth and suffers from depression, the lawyer said.
Federal officials characterized the case as serious enough to warrant more prison time.
"Ardebili's job was to illegally" acquire military gear "in preparation for war with the United States," said Ed Bradley, the Philadelphia agent in charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.
Ardebili negotiated the purchases of 1,000 state-of-the-art radar shifters, 10 gyro-chip sensors used in advanced aircraft applications, and two digital air computers for an F-4 aircraft, prosecutors said.
In addition, according to a court filing by U.S. Attorney David Weiss and Assistant U.S. Attorney David Hall, Ardebili made "tens of thousands" of requests via e-mail for American-made military hardware, from "aviation to sonar to radar."
The prosecutors said the Iranian arms merchant had acquired roughly $1 million worth of American hardware annually, most of it from U.S. companies.
Ardebili was lured by two ICE undercover operations, one based in the United States and one in Europe, U.S. officials said.
Much of the negotiation was done via e-mail or instant message.
In May 2006, for example, an ICE agent e-mailed Ardebili, writing in broken English to disguise himself: "What you can say can perhaps be good business, but I stress to you what we are do is ILLEGAL in US."
Ardebili replied the next month. To avoid the U.S. embargo law, he suggested that the military parts be shipped to Europe, then forwarded to Iran. "This is long time we are in the business and working in full security system. . . . [No one will] know end user located in Iran."
By 2007, Ardebili was negotiating by e-mail to buy the radar components and night-vision equipment, the U.S. government said. The undercover agents offered to sell more than 1,000 radar microchips for use in Iran through a shipping company in Azerbaijan. After protracted negotiations, Ardebili agreed to make a deposit on the radar components and wired $3,000 to the ICE undercover company's bank in Delaware, which is why the case was prosecuted in Wilmington.
Although Ardebili wanted to meet the salesmen in Dubai, the undercover ICE agent lured him to Georgia.
In one of their last instant-message chats, the ICE agent wrote to the Iranian arms merchant: "Our future is going to be big. I sometimes believe you do not know how big will our deals be."
Article was forwarded by our retired border agents at NAFBPO.
http://nafbpo.org/
While I’m glad they stopped him from getting US arms, how can the actions of an Iranian in the nation of Georgia be covered by US laws? If he came to the US to procure arms, yes, but he wasn’t in the US.
Imagine if German law enforcement ran a sting operation in Columbia and charged a US citizen for breaking German laws.
This sounds pretty bogus, at least to the reference of a war between the US and Iran: It ain’t gonna happen. (But, since the article stems from an incident in 2007, when Bush was still POTUS, there was, perhaps, at that time, some chance of such a conflict. However, with ObaMugabe at the helm, such a chance has evaporated completely.)
America will go to war because war is the only to save the Obama Presidency from total oblivion.
They see the weakness of Obama as the perfect opportunity to stock up on weapons, people in the USA see the gun grabbing rhetoric of Obama as the NEED to stock up....
Isn't that a lot like a used-car salesman telling you he already has a buyer for the car you like, this afternoon?
He’s right - Iran is preparing to attack the US at any open opportunity. They’re also prepared to bait us into an attack.
I think your vision is too narrow. I think the day is coming and will soon be here when we will have no choice but to go to war with Iran. Who knows what the flash point will be? Will Gog and MaGog move down from the North and East? Who KNose, I tell you, Who KNose?
I wonder which F-4 they are talking about? If they mean the F-4 Phantom, then they are sadly outclassed by todays fighter aircraft. Also, I was at an Air Force pilot training base in Texas, when Iranian pilots were going to undergraduate pilot training. The USAF instructor pilots said the Iranians were hazards to air navigation. Almost none of them could fly. Unless things have changed greatly, the Iranian Air Force will be no more a factor than was the Iraqi Air Force.
The F4 was a formidable aircraft in its day. But it would be hopelessly outgunned today. Still, with the nutjob over there in charge, I expect him to continue until Israel has finally had enough. With our incompetent-in-chief, I honestly do not know where the US stands.
“With our incompetent-in-chief, I honestly do not know where the US stands.”
Too true, SueRae, too true.
“Less bogus now? “
Hey!
Why is there no mention of “which” US companies were doing the selling?
War is coming!
DOH!
I’ve just been on R&R since 1969...
Liberals have this disturbingly twisted idea of
“Peace” as some natural state when in reality
it is as un-natural a state as can be.
Is it found in Nature? No. So it must be imposed
and if imposed it cannot be pleaded for but must
be inforced. If inforced it cannot be done from a
position of weakness.This is why the policies of Carter
and Obama have and will lead to more strife for our posterity. It’s really very simple.
I learned long ago that when I left Vietnam, I didn’t
leave the battlefield.
I walk with Krishna on the battlefield of life.
Tet68.
Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me given Iran’s close ties with Chavez. The two could conspire to draw us into something.
And as paranoid as it sounds, Bambi would probably welcome it as a chance to force American submission to more Marxist/Muslim hostility.
A very good point indeed. These charges appear to strike at the very notion of national sovereignty.
I think so too. But I think it will be with Pok-E-stahn, which will be colonized by the Tahl-E-bohn by the time we’re done with it.
The article indicates that this Iranian was arrested 2 years ago. Iran’s been out there for a long time trying to buy a whole range of spares for equipment that was originally purchased under the Shah.
IIRC, a British magistrate attempted to bring charges against Augusto Pinochet while he was in Europe for medical treatment. Those charges had to do with violations of the UN Human Rights Charter for actions taken in Chile during his time as military dictator. When it comes to certain international laws the jurisdiction appears to be 'universal.'
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