Immigration Customs Enforcement

Retired US colonel charged with smuggling weapons to Somalia

July 6, 2010 by intelNews 5 Comments

Somalia

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A retired US Air Force colonel, who was charged with weapons smuggling during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, has been indicted again, this time for trying to smuggle automatic weapons into Somalia. US federal authorities accuse Joseph O’Toole, now 79, of conspiring with Israeli citizen Chanoch Miller, formerly an aeronautics engineer with Israeli defense firm Radom Aviation, to transport nearly 2,000 AK-47s from Bosnia to Banderal, Somalia. The smuggling operation, which employed forged end-user certificates issued in Chad, violated US weapons export control regulations, which are in compliance with a United Nations weapons embargo to war-ravaged Somalia. This is the second time O’Toole has been indicted with conspiring to smuggle weapons. In 1989, he was charged of working with fellow-American Richard St. Francis and Israeli alleged ex-Mossad operative Ari Ben-Menashe, to sell several US C-130 cargo airplanes to the Iranian government. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with AK-47, Ari Ben-Menashe, Banderal (Somalia), C-130 aircraft, Chad, Chanoch Miller, Immigration Customs Enforcement, Iran, Iran-Contra Scandal, Israel, Joseph O'Toole, lawsuits, Mossad, News, Radom Aviation, Richard St. Francis, Somalia, United Nations, United States, US Air Force, weapons smuggling

News you may have missed #0243

January 5, 2010 by intelNews 4 Comments

US releases video of Iranian arms dealer caught in Georgia. The CIA has released footage showing Amir Hossein Ardebili, an Iranian arms dealer allegedly working for the government in Tehran, trying to purchase avionics systems from two men, who were reportedly covert US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Numbers of ex-KGB agents in Russian government falling. The numbers of Vladimir Putin-linked ex-KGB agents inside the Russian government hit their apogee in 2007, when they accounted for two out of every three members of the Putin’s administration. But since the accession to the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, they are now down to one in two.

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with Amir Hossein Ardebili, CIA, covert operations, Dmitry Medvedev, Georgia, Immigration Customs Enforcement, Iran, KGB, News, news you may have missed, Russia, United States, Vladimir Putin

FOIA request reveals US Army spying on activists

July 29, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Eileen Clancy

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
US government documents released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by activists in Washington state have helped unmask a US Army informant operating amidst their ranks. John Towery, a member of the US Army’s Force Protection Service at Fort Lewis in Washington, claimed to be an anarchist named “John Jacob” in order to join Students for a Democratic Society and Port Militarization Resistance. He then spied on the groups on behalf of several regional and federal government agencies, including Immigration Customs Enforcement, Joint Terrorism Task Force, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the US Army. This is the latest in a long line of similar incidents, which inevitably point to a systematic campaign of domestic intelligence gathering against antiwar groups. Read more of this post