A Major Arms Dealer in Shackles, Delivered to New York

[maddezmom]

~anip~

Before his arrest last June at Madrid Barajas International Airport, Mr. Kassar, 62, was a vastly wealthy weapons dealer, a wanted man for more than 30 years who officials say played roles in the Iran-contra affair, the Achille Lauro hijacking and the insurgency in Iraq.

His arrest in Spain last year (despite the presence of his two bodyguards) was the capstone of an American undercover operation that resulted in his indictment in New York in a plot to ship millions of dollars of weapons on a Greek freighter bound from Romania to members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

No one would have known that a captured suspect, accused of selling arms to terrorists and of helping Saddam Hussein spirit a billion dollars out of Iraq, was landing in a crowd at the Wall Street heliport unless he or she had been alerted in advance. (In fact, the news media were tipped off in advance, and a row of photographers with telephoto lenses lined a railing near the river as French and German tourists asked them who was coming.)

Still, if one knew what to look for, there were signs: the Escalade, a fast boat from the Police Department Harbor Unit bobbing on the water, a few fit men in darkish suits with corkscrewed plastic wires in their ears.

more:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/nyregion/14dealer.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin