Three men were convicted in federal court Tuesday of plotting to smuggle into
the U.S. high-powered military weapons, including shoulder fired surface-to-air
missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s and claymore mines.
Artur Solomonyan, Christian Dewet Spies and Ioseb Kharabadze were
convicted of attempting to broker a deal with a confidential informant to import
weapons from Eastern Europe. The FBI arrested them before they could travel
outside the country to obtain the weapons, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said.
According to court papers, the men had several meetings in New York City
with the informant between December 2003 and March 2005. In a meeting in June
2004, the men provided a price list to the informant. In another meeting in
February 2005, digital pictures of military weapons available in Armenia for
import were provided to the informant.
clipped from: www.wnbc.com