Feds Probe Blackwater Weapons Smuggling

[Poiuyt]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.

The U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, George Holding, and a spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment Friday. Pentagon and State Department spokesmen declined to comment.

Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, which has heightened since 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in a shooting involving Blackwater contractors protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.

more -

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070922/D8RQ795O0.html

[MadHound]

1. It would be interesting

If the name of Viktor Bout turned up somewhere. After all, he has done work for the US government before.

[Poiuyt]

3. Who is Viktor Bout?

[MadHound]

4. Bout is the largest single arms dealer in the world

He's a Russian who, in his mid twenties, used the collapse of the Soviet Union to start buying up planes, arms and armaments up cheap, and then transport them to whoever it paying the big bucks via his fleet of planes. He is very good, very hard to catch, and will transport anything. He abhors an empty plane, thus he will haul regular merchandise on his trips back. He has worked for virtually all of the Western governments in one capacity or another, much of the developing world, and even the UN, transporting peace keepers. He and his business go under many aliases and he stays one step ahead of the law. Hell, he's even helped out the US with transport of mercs into Iraq and other Mid East locales. Right now he is a wanted man in Belgium and other countries, but he continues to run his business will hardly any interference, licensing planes in various friendly countries with lax laws. Best of our knowledge, he's got a fine apartment in Moscow, and the Russians refuse to extradite him.
If you want more info on him, read the book called "Merchant of Death" by Douglas Farah(there's also a fictionalized movie on Bout by the same name).

It would come as absolutely no surprise that Bout is involved with all of this, but it sure would be a fine scandal.

[WHAT]

2. I hope someone wipes that...

USA off their face.