Italian Police Foil Iraqi Covert Arms Deal
The Italian police reported yesterday that they have prevented the illegal sale of a large shipment of arms to Iraq. More than 100,000 Bulgarian-made Kalashnikov machineguns and 5000 grenade launchers were supposedly bound for the Iraqi police. Those arrested in the case say that the Americans had approved the deal, worth $40 million, but Washington strongly denies that.
The trail begins in 2005 when Italian police spot an illegal arms trader named Gianluca Squarzolo who is associated with a company registered in Malta called MIR Ltd. The Al-Handal General Trading Co. of Dubai contacted that company saying that it wanted to purchase 100,000 machineguns for use by the Iraqi police in Anbar Province. The Arabs claimed to have all the necessary permission for the deal. The Maltese company originally offers Chinese machineguns to the company in Dubai, but that offer is rejected. The Arabs said that only Russian machineguns would do. Finally, they compromise and agree on Bulgarian guns.
On February 12, 2007, the Italian police decided to move in. They arrested 17 people in seven cities, including the president of MIR Ltd., Massimo Bettinotti. It was also discovered that the company was involved in drug sales. All of those arrested were Italian citizens. If the drug charges are proven, they face 12 years of prison each. The case was not publicized for half a year in the interests of the investigation.
A report by the U.S. House of Representatives was published recently that notes that the American military cannot account for 190,000 firearms that were sent to Iraq in 2004 and 2005. There were 355,000 weapons sent to Iraq between June 2004 and September 2005, but only 75,000 machineguns and 90,000 pistols were registered.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 14, 2007
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