International Arms Dealer Viktor Bout Convicted in New York of Terrorism Crimes

Bout Convicted on All Four Counts, Including Conspiring to Kill Americans and Conspiring to Provide Material Support to Terrorists

 

NEW YORK – International arms dealer Viktor Bout was found guilty today of conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) – a designated foreign terrorist organization based in Colombia – to be used to kill Americans in Colombia, announced the Department of Justice.  

 

“Today, one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers is being held accountable for his sordid past,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.   “Viktor Bout’s arms trafficking activity and support of armed conflicts have been a source of concern around the globe for decades.   Today, he faces the prospect of life in prison for his efforts to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to terrorists for use in killing Americans."

 

“As the evidence at trial showed, Viktor Bout was ready to sell a weapons arsenal that would be the envy of some small countries,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara.   “He aimed to sell those weapons to terrorists for the purpose of killing Americans.    With today’s swift verdict, justice has been done and a very dangerous man will be behind bars.   I would like to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents who investigated this case on three different continents and helped to bring Viktor Bout to justice.”

 

Bout was arrested in Thailand in March 2008 based on a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court.   He was subsequently charged in a four-count indictment in May 2008 and extradited to the Southern District of New York in November 2010.   Bout was convicted today of   conspiring to kill U.S. nationals; conspiring to kill U.S. officers and employees; conspiring to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles; and conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.   The three-week jury trial was presided over by U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin.

 

According to the indictment and evidence presented at the trial:

 

Since the 1990s, Bout has been an international weapons trafficker.   As a result of his weapons trafficking activities in Liberia, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control within the Department of Treasury placed him on the Specially Designated nationals list in 2004.   The designation prohibits any transactions between Bout and U.S. nationals, and freezes any of his assets that are within the jurisdiction of the United States.

 

Between November 2007 and March 2008, Bout agreed to sell to the FARC millions of dollars’ worth of weapons – including 800 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 30,000 AK-47 firearms, 10 million rounds of ammunition, five tons of C-4 plastic explosives, “ultralight” airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers and unmanned aerial vehicles.   Bout agreed to sell the weapons to two confidential sources working with the DEA (the “CSs”), who represented that they were acquiring them for the FARC, with the specific understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack U.S. helicopters in Colombia.

 

During a covertly recorded meeting in Thailand on March 6, 2008, Bout stated to the CSs that he could arrange to airdrop the arms to the FARC in Colombia, and offered to sell two cargo planes to the FARC that could be used for arms deliveries.   He also provided a map of South America and asked the CSs to show him American radar locations in Colombia.   Bout said that he understood that the CSs wanted the arms to use against American personnel in Colombia, and advised that, “we have the same enemy,” referring to the United States.   He also stated that the FARC’s fight against the United States was also his fight and that he had been “fighting the United States…for 10 to 15 years.” During the meeting, he also offered to provide people to train the FARC in the use of the arms.

 

The evidence presented at trial included a recording of the March 6, 2008 meeting between Bout, the CSs, his former associate Andrew Smulian, and others.   Smulian was charged along with Bout in the government’s March 2008 complaint and pleaded guilty in May 2008 to the four conspiracy counts of which Bout was just convicted.   Smulian cooperated with the government and, along with the two CSs, provided testimony at the trial.

 

Bout faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on counts one through three, including a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison for count three.   He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison on count four.  

 

Bout is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Scheindlin on Feb. 8, 2012.

 

The case was investigated by the DEA, with assistance from the Royal Thai Police; the Romanian National Police; the Romanian Prosecutor’s Office Attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice; the Korps Politie Curacao of the Netherlands Antilles; and the Danish National Police Security Services.   

 

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anjan Sahni and Brendan R. Mcguire from the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit.   The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs provided assistance.

Former Guard Charged with Attempting to Communicate National Defense Information to People’s Republic of China

WASHINGTON – Bryan Underwood, a former contract guard working at a U.S. Consulate in China, has been charged in a superseding indictment with one count of attempting to communicate national defense information to a foreign government, two counts of making false statements and one count of failing to appear in court pursuant to his conditions of release.  

The superseding indictment, which was returned today by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia, was announced by Lisa Monaco, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

Underwood, 31, was first charged in an indictment on Aug. 31, 2011, with two counts of making false statements and was arrested on Sept. 1, 2011.   On Sept. 21, 2011, Underwood was scheduled to appear at a status hearing in federal court in the District of Columbia, but failed to do so.   The FBI located Underwood in Los Angeles and arrested him there in the early morning hours of Sept. 24, 2011.   Underwood will be brought back to the District of Columbia for arraignment on the superseding indictment.   If convicted of the charges against him in the superseding indictment, Underwood faces a maximum potential sentence of life in prison.

According to the superseding indictment, from about March 1, 2011, to about Aug. 5, 2011, Underwood knowingly and unlawfully attempted to communicate photographs and other information relating to the national defense to representatives of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with the intent and reason to believe that these materials would be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation.

The indictment further alleges that on Aug. 5, 2011, Underwood made a false statement when he stated to an FBI representative that he was intending to assist the FBI when he wrote a letter stating his “interest in initiating a business arrangement” with the PRC.   Underwood also made a false statement, according to the indictment, when he stated to an FBI representative that he was intending to assist the FBI when he took certain photographs of his place of work.   Finally, the indictment alleges that Underwood failed to appear in court on Sept. 21, 2011 in accordance with the conditions of his release, after his initial arrest on Aug. 31, 2011.

“ As this case demonstrates, we remain vigilant in protecting America’s secrets and in bringing to justice those who attempt to compromise them,” said Assistant Attorney General Monaco.

“Our national security depends upon our ability to keep our most sensitive information confidential.  Bryan Underwood is charged with trying to pass American secrets to China and then lying to cover up his betrayal,” said U.S. Attorney Machen. “I want to congratulate the FBI for so quickly tracking down this defendant in California so that he could be brought back to the District of Columbia to face these charges.”

“The FBI is committed to working with our partners in the U.S. Government to prevent the compromise of U.S. national security information by those who would attempt to sell it for personal gain,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge McJunkin. “Those who seek to flee from justice should know that the FBI will locate and apprehend them.”

This investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Washington Field Office, with assistance from the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The prosecution is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney Ryan Fayhee from the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Deportation Ordered for Detroit Man Who Shot Jews as Nazi Policeman During World War II

Learn how German National Socialism and Soviet Communism were very similar in nature and both ascended from Marxian socialism.  Check out this video clip from the documentary film The Soviet Story (2009).

WASHINGTON – The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has dismissed the appeal of John (Ivan) Kalymon of Troy, Mich. "(near Detroit), who was ordered removed from the United States earlier this year because of his participation in lethal acts of Nazi-sponsored persecution of Jews during World War II, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton.   

The BIA upheld a Detroit immigration judge’s Jan. 31, 2011, decision that Kalymon was removable for shooting Jews while serving voluntarily as an armed member of the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (UAP) in German-occupied L’viv, Ukraine.    

“John Kalymon and his Ukrainian Police accomplices were indispensable participants in Nazi Germany’s campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe during World War II,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer. “Their actions ensured that tens of thousands of Jewish men, women and children were murdered in L’viv or rounded up and shipped to the Nazi death camp in Belzec or Nazi forced labor camps.  The Justice Department remains steadfast in our resolve to ensure that Holocaust perpetrators are not granted safe haven in this country.”

“We hope upholding this removal order helps bring justice to the families who were victimized by the reprehensible acts that this man committed,” said ICE Director Morton.  “The U.S. government will work tirelessly to identify and arrest those who have committed crimes against humanity so that they may not seek to gain safe haven in the United States.”

In January 2011, U.S. Immigration Judge Elizabeth Hacker ordered Kalymon removed from the United States.   Kalymon, 90, immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1949 and became a U.S. citizen in 1955.   In 2004, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Detroit seeking revocation of his U.S. citizenship.   Following trial, a federal judge granted that request in 2007, finding that Kalymon had participated in the rounding up and shooting of Jews during his voluntary 1941-44 service in the UAP.   The judge further found that Kalymon concealed his UAP service when applying for his U.S. immigrant visa.   The evidence included a seized Aug. 14, 1942, report, handwritten by Kalymon, in which he informed his UAP superiors that he had personally shot to death one Jew and had wounded another “during the Jewish operation” that day.   The evidence also included other reports from Kalymon’s commander that Kalymon had fired his weapon during forcible round-ups of Jews, in the course of which Jews were killed and wounded.   Judge Hacker ordered Kalymon deported to Germany, Ukraine, Poland or any other country that will admit him.

The BIA reviewed Judge Hacker’s decision and ruled that it agreed with the decision that “clear and convincing evidence” proffered by the Government “establishes the facts alleged” in the charging document.

“Ivan Kalymon was an integral part of the Nazi machinery of annihilation that ended the lives of more than 100,000 innocent men, women and children in L’viv,” said Eli M. Rosenbaum, Director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy for the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section (HRSP).   “This case is one of more than a hundred cases successfully prosecuted by the Department of Justice against wartime Nazi perpetrators, and it reflects the government’s continuing commitment to pursuing justice on behalf of the victims of the Holocaust and other human rights crimes.”

The Department of Justice’s Criminal Division announced the formation of HRSP on March 30, 2010, as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to bring human rights violators to justice and deny those violators safe haven in the United States.    The new section represents a merger of the Criminal Division’s former Domestic Security Section (DSS) and Office of Special Investigations (OSI).

This case is a result of the Justice Department’s ongoing efforts to identify, investigate and take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution who reside in the United States.   Since the inception of this program in 1979, the department has won cases against 107 individuals who assisted in Nazi persecution.   In addition, 180 suspected Axis persecutors who sought to enter the United States have been blocked from doing so as a result of the department’s “watchlist” program, enforced in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security.   The removal case against Kalymon was litigated by HRSP Senior Trial Attorney William H. Kenety V, with assistance from Frank Ledda, Senior Chief Counsel in the Detroit Office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Additional information about the Justice Department’s human rights enforcement efforts can be found at Justice.gov/criminal/hrsp.

Note: German-occupied Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union which Nazi Germany invaded in 1941.  However, the Soviet Union was originally an ally of Nazi Germany in the war from 1939-41.