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Grenades, Mines and U.S. Weapons Parts: Argentina Foils Huge Smuggling Operation Grenades, Land Mines and U.S. Weapons Parts: Argentina Foils Huge Smuggling Operation
(about 11 hours later)
BUENOS AIRES — Thousands of powerful weapons, including an antiaircraft system and arms parts from the United States, have been confiscated by law enforcement officials in Argentina, who called it the largest seizure of illegal arms in the country’s history. BUENOS AIRES — Law-enforcement officials in Argentina suspected they would find plenty of weapons when they began raiding houses across the country this week as part of a monthslong investigation into the thriving arms trade that is outfitting Brazil’s violent drug trafficking gangs.
Acting on tips from United States and Brazilian investigators, the police in Argentina carried out 52 raids across the country this week in an effort to dismantle a sophisticated trans-Atlantic arms-smuggling scheme that relied on a network of secret bunkers. Among the 2,500 weapons found were grenades and anti-tank mines. It soon became clear that this was no ordinary gun bust.
“This is an army,” Patricia Bullrich, the Argentine security minister, said in a televised interview on Wednesday. The street value of the confiscated weapons is estimated at $150 million to $200 million, Ms. Bullrich said. Investigators found anti-tank land mines, artillery rounds and hundreds of rifles in a network of houses, some outfitted with secret bunkers where American-made weapons were assembled.
Officials said that the traffickers had shipped the parts, often from the United States, to Argentina for assembly. From there, smugglers would drive the cargo through Paraguay and across that country’s porous border into Brazil, where powerful drug-trafficking gangs are facing an intensifying crackdown. Officials on Friday called it the largest weapons seizure in the country’s history as they disclosed details of a transnational investigation sparked by a couple of packages that caught the attention of customs officers in Miami last October.
At least 23 people have been arrested in Argentina this week in connection with the arms scheme. American law enforcement officials are expected to announce additional details about the investigation Friday morning during a news conference in Miami. More than 2,500 firearms were recovered. Officials said some of the arms came from Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. They said they had not yet established how many of the weapons were made in the United States.
Ms. Bullrich said two Brazilians and an Argentine had been taken into custody in the United States as part of the investigation. The discovery of the arsenals comes in the midst of a heated debate over public safety policy in Brazil. Gangs are facing an intensifying crackdown by the police. Politicians, including President Jair Bolsonaro, have promised to resort to draconian means to restore order in the country’s violent cities. Yet the Brazilian government is also trying to make it easier for people to buy guns.
Argentine officials said the investigation began in November, after officials, acting on tips from American investigators, seized 600 weapons. That led the authorities to a sophisticated smuggling network with hubs in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, which relied on the countries’ postal services to move the weapons parts. That effort comes as the Trump administration is trying to loosen arms export regulations and give Congress less visibility and oversight over foreign arms sales — initiatives that Democrats on Capitol Hill are fighting.
Much of the arsenal arrived in Argentina aboard a Portuguese-flagged vessel named Palak, which became the investigation’s code name. Officials said a ringleader of the network, a man they identified as Ricardo Guillermo Deisernia, had a secret bunker inside his home in the Martínez district of Buenos Aires Province. Gun control advocates say that if the efforts in both countries succeed, the measures will be a boon for criminal organizations.
When officers searched the house this week, officials said, they found a bulletproof door in the laundry area that led to an air-conditioned armory, which had dozens of powerful rifles hanging from the walls. In the port city of Bahía Blanca, law enforcement officials uncovered a cache of weapons in a second bunker inside a dentist’s office. “It would exacerbate the problem of guns ending in the hands of unsavory characters across the globe,” said Kristen Rand, the legislative director for the Violence Policy Center in Washington, which advocates for tighter regulations.
Argentina has been involved in arms-smuggling networks, with one scandal reaching the halls of power — the government of President Carlos Menem. In 2013, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for illegally selling weapons to Ecuador and Croatia in the 1990s, when both countries were engulfed in armed conflicts. The variety and number of weapons seized underscores how lethal and heavily armed Brazilian drug trafficking gangs have become.
A court said his government had smuggled more than 6,000 tons of weapons to the countries through Venezuela and Panama. The sentence was ultimately overturned by the country’s highest criminal court last year. “These are organizations that have the need for weapons that are more sophisticated than what the common criminal would use,” Patricia Bullrich, Argentina’s public security minister said in an interview.
Brazil’s main drug-trafficking organizations, the First Capital Command and the Red Command, import millions of dollars’ worth of arms to retain control of lucrative hubs in the trans-Atlantic cocaine trade. The country is one of the largest cocaine consumer markets in the world and an important transit point for drugs shipped to Europe and Africa. The investigation began last October, when officials at a shipping facility in the Doral area of Miami inspected two identical large boxes that had labels indicating they contained secondhand sporting goods, according to a federal criminal complaint filed this week.
The Brazilian groups, which have tens of thousands of foot soldiers, control vast districts in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and other large Brazilian cities, and they engage in almost daily gun battles with rival gangs and the security forces. After customs officers discovered that the packages contained nearly 100 parts for rifles of the AR-15 line, including trigger kits and pistol grips, American officials notified their Argentine counterparts and agreed to covertly track the boxes to their destination in Argentina.
American officials hailed the bust as a significant strike against criminal groups that have tens of thousands of foot soldiers in Brazil, one of the largest cocaine consumer markets and an important transit point for drugs smuggled to Europe.
“These weapons, when they hit South America, usually hit at a significant markup,” Anthony Salisbury, the special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Miami told reporters Friday. “Who’s going to be able to afford that kind of markup, especially if you’re a criminal? It’s going to be these cartels, criminal organizations.”
Surveillance video from a Bradenton, Fla., post office where the packages were dropped off led investigators to a couple in their 60s who have ties to Argentina, according to law enforcement officials.
Federal prosecutors charged the couple, John James Peterson, 60, and Brunella Zuppone, 67, with conspiracy and an illegal attempt to export arms. The charging document, which was filed this week, says the two acknowledged to investigators that they had previously shipped weapons unlawfully to the South American country.
As officials in Argentina followed up on leads from their American counterparts, they identified a handful of arms smugglers that appeared to have stumbled into the trade as gun enthusiasts — an anomaly in a country where guns are tightly regulated.
“We don’t have the same philosophy of the Second Amendment as in the U.S.,” said Ms. Bullrich, the Argentine public security minister. “We try to make sure that the population at large does not have weapons.”
“We believe that a disarmed population is better and that there must be a monopoly of weapons in the hands of the security forces,” she added.
As they carried out 52 raids across the country this week, Argentine officials were aghast by the size and range of the arsenal they found. The arsenal is worth an estimated $200 million, according to Argentine officials.
On Friday, military experts were on hand at a news conference in Buenos Aires where officials displayed rounds of artillery, sniper rifles and other weapons.
Ms. Bullrich said Argentine investigators believe the weapons smugglers there were not directly linked to the Brazilian groups.
“There is a group of people who saw an economic opportunity in a hobby that they had,” Ms. Bullrich said.
As of Friday, officials in Argentina had arrested at least 21 people as part of the investigation, including a Chinese citizen.
Once the arms were assembled in Argentina, some in secret bunkers in ordinary homes, they were shipped by land to Paraguay, which shares a porous border with Brazil, according to the authorities.
Brazil’s main drug-trafficking organizations, the First Capital Command and the Red Command, import millions of dollars’ worth of arms to retain control of lucrative hubs in the trans-Atlantic cocaine trade.
The Brazilian groups control vast districts in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and other large Brazilian cities, and they engage in almost daily gun battles with rival gangs and the security forces.
Newly elected leaders in Brazil, including Gov. Wilson Witzel of Rio de Janeiro, have endorsed draconian tactics against drug-smuggling gangs.Newly elected leaders in Brazil, including Gov. Wilson Witzel of Rio de Janeiro, have endorsed draconian tactics against drug-smuggling gangs.
“The way traffickers are working to protect their drug trade, with terrorist acts, with bombs, generating panic in the population, is an affront to institutions,” Mr. Witzel, a former federal judge, said in December, shortly before taking office. “We need to work to confront them in the same way they’re acting, as terrorists.”“The way traffickers are working to protect their drug trade, with terrorist acts, with bombs, generating panic in the population, is an affront to institutions,” Mr. Witzel, a former federal judge, said in December, shortly before taking office. “We need to work to confront them in the same way they’re acting, as terrorists.”
Mr. Witzel said the police would use snipers to kill armed criminals from afar, and has asserted that the police have the authority to shoot at armed drug traffickers. Since he was sworn in, in January, the police in the state have killed people at an unprecedented rate. During the first four months of the year, the police killed at least 558 people, roughly five per day, in a state home to nearly 17 million.Mr. Witzel said the police would use snipers to kill armed criminals from afar, and has asserted that the police have the authority to shoot at armed drug traffickers. Since he was sworn in, in January, the police in the state have killed people at an unprecedented rate. During the first four months of the year, the police killed at least 558 people, roughly five per day, in a state home to nearly 17 million.