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Federal prosecutors announced charges Thursday against an international syndicate that sought to sell rocket launchers, anti-personnel mines and anti-aircraft weapons to Mexican drug cartels.
Peter Mirchev, a Bulgarian with 25 years in the arms dealing business, would bribe corrupt officials in African nations to claim they were buying arms for their militaries when, in fact, the shipments were being diverted to Mr. Mirchev’s clients.
In this case, that was the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, one of Mexico’s most notoriously violent operations, according to the criminal indictment exposing the operation.
Mr. Mirchev said he could supply everything from surface-to-air missiles and armored vehicles to drones, machine guns and grenade launchers. He even carried a brochure showing the menu of weapons he could procure, for the right price.
Authorities say he was working on a $58 million deal with CJNG, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.
The prosecution sheds light on how the cartels armed themselves with the kind of equipment that lets them go toe-to-toe with Mexico’s police and military, as well as battle one another.
Prosecutors also tied Mr. Mirchev to Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer called the “Merchant of Death,” whom President Biden released from prison in 2022 in an exchange for women’s pro basketball player Brittney Griner.
Mr. Mirchev was arrested by Spanish authorities this year and is awaiting extradition to the U.S.
Elisha Odhiambo Asumo, a Kenyan man who served as a key go-between, was arrested in Morocco in April and is also awaiting extradition.
Subrio Osmund Mwapinga, a Tanzanian, was extradited to the U.S. last week and was ordered held pending trial by a federal magistrate judge this week.
A fourth defendant, Michael Katungi Mpeirwe, a citizen of Uganda, remains at large.
Prosecutors said in the indictment that Mr. Mirchev would have helped CJNG inflict “catastrophic suffering” on its victims in exchange for a big payday.
“The purpose of the conspiracy was for the defendants to financially enrich themselves by illegally arming the cartels, including the CJNG, in exchange for payment,” the government charged.
The case was brought in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.
Although the announcement Thursday centered on CJNG, the Gulf, Northeast and Sinaloa cartels are also reported to be consumers of heavy military hardware.
Photos of heavily armed cartel soldiers underscore their ability to challenge Mexican authorities and fuel questions about how much control the cartels exert over large areas of the country.
American officials fear the cartels’ reach inside the U.S. as well, though the violence attributed to the organizations is far more limited and is usually aimed at others in the underworld.
Still, the U.S. role in arming the cartels has long been a complaint of Mexico, which has labeled the flow of weapons across the southern border the “Iron River.” It estimates that hundreds of thousands are trafficked each year.
The hardware alleged in the latest case against Mr. Mirchev goes beyond the guns available at U.S. stores.
His arms brochure, which he brought to a meeting where he thought he was dealing with the CJNG, lists belt-fed, tripod-mounted machine guns, mortars, armor-penetrating grenade launchers and even a Soviet Bloc-style T-72M1 battle tank.
Prosecutors said Mr. Mirchev sought to skim weapons off planned arms deals involving other nations, such as one between Russia and Uganda.
In one transaction recorded in the indictment, Mr. Mirchev paid at least $35,000 to have Mr. Asumo and Mr. Mwapinga divert 50 AK-47 automatic rifles and 140,000 rounds of ammunition from Tanzania’s military to CJNG.
The rifles were seized before they reached the cartel.
Mr. Mirchev continued to plot sales. He laid out details of a $58 million cartel buy that would include 2,000 AK-47s, grenade launchers, anti-aircraft drones and an anti-aircraft system that Mr. Mirchev said was capable of shooting down helicopters.
Prosecutors included the purchase proposal in court documents.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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