Thursday, April 13, 2006

Arms smugglers grabbed in Hawaii

It seems like you really do need to go through the right channels to get serious military equipment out of the US.
An Indonesian and a Singapore man have been charged with attempting to smuggle arms from the United States to Indonesia, according to federal prosecutors.
The two men tried to purchase $US500,000 worth of parts to be used for radar and missile guidance systems on military aircraft and $US1 million worth of machine guns, sniper rifles and other weapons, the criminal indictment said.
Brian Moskowitz, special agent in charge of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Detroit, is reported as saying: "The phrase border security means more than just holding the line against people and things that shouldn't get into the United States. Equally important is protecting what goes out.
"Guarding against the illegal export of America's controlled arms and critical technology is a vital component of ICE's strategy to protect America's national security interests in a global economy."
Obviously Hadianto Djoko Djuliarso, 41, of Indonesia and Ibrahim Bin Amran, 46, of Singapore didn’t use the proper conduits. Surely there are still some effective back room manipulators left in Washington.

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