Black market arms
HSI’s Los Angeles Counter-Proliferation Investigations Center began the investigation into Ghanem in mid-2014, when a Los Angeles-based company alerted HSI that it had been solicited to provide military equipment to Ghanem. As a result of his conduct, the sentence imposed in this case is appropriate and richly deserved.” Ghanem was literally a merchant of death who was ready, willing and able to sell weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, to any paying customer, with zero concern for the death and destruction these weapons might cause. Attorney for the Central District California. This defendant brokered a wide array of military-grade weapons, which endangered civilians around the world and put at risk America’s national security interests, including members of our armed services,” said Nick Hanna, U.S. In addition to numerous documents that demonstrated Ghanem’s role in the conspiracy, the jury viewed videos of sworn deposition testimony of two missile operators and Ghanem’s fellow arms broker who assisted in procuring their services for this transaction.
Among other actions, Ghanem negotiated the salaries and terms of service of the mercenary missile operators, coordinated their payment, facilitated their travel to Libya, confirmed their arrival and performance of duties, and offered them a $50,000 bonus if they were successful in their mission of shooting down airplanes flown by the internationally recognized government of Libya. During the trial, prosecutors showed that he conspired to use Russian-made Igla and Strela surface-to-air missile systems by brokering the services of mercenary missile operators to a militant faction in Libya in 2015.
#Black market arms trial#
The evidence presented at last year’s trial showed that Ghanem conspired to transfer a wide array of surface-to-air missile systems to customers around the world, including clients in Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and the leadership of Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
The day before his trial started, Ghanem pleaded guilty to six other federal crimes stemming from his arms-trafficking activities, including the unlicensed export of weapons and ammunition, smuggling, money laundering, and unlicensed arms brokering. Customs and Border Protection.įollowing a nine-day trial last November, a federal jury found Ghanem guilty of conspiring to use and to transfer missile systems designed to destroy aircraft. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Los Angeles, which received substantial assistance from the Department of Defense’s Criminal Investigative Service the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement and the Hellenic National Police the Hellenic Financial and Economic Crimes Unit and U.S.
The investigation in this case was led by U.S. James Otero.ĭuring Monday’s sentencing hearing, Judge Otero said, “The breadth, scope and gravity is really breathtaking and, in many ways, frightening.” Rami Najm Asad-Ghanem, 53, who was commonly known as Rami Ghanem, a naturalized United States citizen who was living in Egypt at the time of the offenses, was sentenced August 19 by U.S. A black-market arms dealer with a long history of brokering machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank armaments – and who was found guilty last year in a scheme to sell and use surface-to-air missiles – has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.