Arms for sale
From Mary Snow
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- It was in a modest Manhattan hotel where the FBI arrested the alleged ringleaders and says it foiled a plot to import Russian-style military weapons into the United States.
Rocket-propelled grenade launchers and shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles were on a list of weapons that the defendants allegedly talked about with a paid FBI informant.
According to a criminal complaint, the would-be sellers claimed ties to ex-KGB officials and spoke in code, referring to RPG's as "fliers" and machine guns as "puppies."
"It appears the defendants were planning to obtain that weaponry through contacts they had developed in Eastern European military circles. We are now working with our counterparts overseas to secure the weapons and to bring to justice conspirators who may be abroad," U.S. Attorney David Kelley said at a press conference Tuesday.
The arrests culminated a year long investigation using the informant posing as an arms broker for unspecified terrorists.
The suspects were in the United States illegally, mainly from Armenia, Russia, and the Republic of Georgia.
Prosecutors say the alleged mastermind, 26-year-old Arthur Solomonyan, once hinted at something bigger.
"The defendant Solomonyon suggested to the informant that he could obtain enriched uranium for possible use in the subway system. There was never, however, any such uranium," Kelley said.
And the uranium was never discussed again in 15,000 wiretapped phone calls.
Nor did any of the big weapons make it into the United States.
The charges say only eight machine guns were delivered to New York, Los Angeles, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
But law enforcement officials believe they cracked a potential overseas weapons pipeline.
"These defendants may not have been terrorists themselves, but they have showed transparent willingness to do anything with anybody so long as it generates money for their organization," said FBI Special Agent Andy Arena.
The FBI says the complaint reads like a Hollywood script with secret meetings at New York hotels and restaurants -- even inside the sauna and hot tub of a Brooklyn spa.
The story ends with the informant promising to deliver green cards to the ringleaders so they can travel to pick up weapons.
