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Note: The following text is a quote: Arms Trafficker Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Plot to Smuggle Shoulder-Fired Surface-to-Air Missiles, Rocket-Propelled Grenades, and Other Military Weapons LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that CHRISTIAAN SPIES, a leader of an international arms trafficking operation, was sentenced today to 20 years in prison for plotting to smuggle shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles ("SAMs"), rocket-propelled grenades ("RPGs"), anti-tank guided missiles, and other high-powered military weapons into the United States for sale. United States District Judge RICHARD J. HOLWELL imposed the sentence today in...

Joseb Kharabadze, 52, Upper West Side of Manhattan. Native former Soviet Republic of Georgia. The feds charged a band of NY 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...

Link to FR thread with the related news report: freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1363252/posts United States Attorney David Kelley announced today that charges were filed against 18 individuals for various weapons trafficking offenses, including a scheme to smuggle rocket-propelled grenade launchers, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles and other Russian military weapons into the U.S. for sale. Kelley said the first arrests were made in New York Monday night, and were quickly followed with arrests in Miami and Los Angeles, among other places. The smuggling ring included Armenians, South Africans and people from the former Soviet state of Georgia. The defendants brought AK-47s and an Uzi into...