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United States Prosecuting Violators of Arms Export Controls

05 July 2006

One case involved nearly $4 million in small arms for Colombian terrorists

Washington -- The U.S. government has had increasing success over the past five years in arresting and convicting violators of the Arms Export Control Act, according to a State Department fact sheet released July 3.

The release provides some figures and some case summaries for criminal enforcement actions since the adoption of the action program at the conclusion of the U.N. Conference to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects in July 2001.

On June 27, Robert Joseph, under secretary of state for arms control and international security, addressed the conference’s 2006 meeting in New York, where he reiterated U.S. support for "aggressive steps to implement the recently concluded agreement on the marking and tracing of weapons, effective controls on weapons transfers -- both import and export -- as well as robust end-user certifications, strengthening controls over international brokers; effective stockpile management of weapons under state control; and the destruction of government-declared surplus and illicit weapons."  (See related article.)

The State Department release said there were 59 arrests for violations related to the arms act in 2001, with 39 convictions obtained; in 2003 there were 94 arrests.  In 2005 there were 69 convictions of the arms act.  Halfway through 2006, there have been 86 arrests, with 32 convictions.

This progress led State’s John Hillen, assistant secretary for political military affairs to declare in a recent op-ed for the Baltimore Sun that the United States sets the “gold standard” for controls on illicit arms.  (See related article.)

Among the case summaries of export violations involving small arms and light weapons in the fact sheet are:

• Smuggling Machine Guns and Grenade Launchers to the U.S. from Vietnam. After spending nine years as a fugitive in Thailand, former U.S. law enforcement officer Daniel Edward Rogers was sentenced to 51 months in prison in November 2005 for smuggling 85 machine guns, four grenade launchers and an assortment of pistols into San Francisco on two Air France flights in 1994.

• Weapons to Colombian Terrorist Group. In August 2005 Colombian Carlos Gamarra-Murillo was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment after pleading guilty to providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization (the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC) and violating the arms act.  An investigation showed Gamarra-Murillo plotted to provide nearly $4 million worth of arms to the FARC, including roughly 4,000 grenades, 1,800 assault rifles, 60 grenade launchers and 60 machine guns.

• Military Laser Sights to Foreign Locations. A Japanese national, Sotaro Inami, was sentenced in April 2005 to 15 months imprisonment for conspiracy to export U.S. munitions list articles to Japan.  The indictment stated that Inami and a co-conspirator attempted to purchase and illegally export military laser sights for M-16 and M-5 rifles to locations outside the United States.

• Assault Rifles and Machine Guns to Philippines.Victor "the Devil" Infante, an accused leader of an international firearms and methamphetamine distribution organization, pleaded guilty to drug-related charges in September 2004, after he was charged with attempted export of assault weapons, including MAC-11 submachine guns, MP-5s, HK-94s, Colt AR-15s, and Uzi Model Bs, to the Philippines.  Philippine authorities contend that Infante supplied arms to the Abu Sayyaf terrorist organization.  He awaits sentencing.

The fact sheet is available on the State Department Web site.

Additional information about U.S. arms export control compliance and enforcement is available on the Web site of the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.

For more information on U.S. policy, see Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)