The owner of an Arlington-based arms brokerage company pleaded guilty Thursday to attempting to sell guns and military vehicles to weapons dealers in Yemen, Libya and other countries without a license from the U.S. State Department.
Taipan Enterprises was ordered to pay $15,000 for trying to dodge U.S. weapons-dealing regulations, prosecutors said. Ioannis Papathanassiou admitted to contacting defense manufacturers in the United States, Sweden and Canada as he tried to broker deals with companies and businessmen in Yemen, Libya, Chile and Vietnam for military vehicles, night vision goggles and automatic handguns.
Court documents show that Papathanassiou was unable to complete the deals he was trying to broker. According to records, he has 25 years of experience working for U.S. weapons dealers and was fully aware that he needed a license to try to broker the deals.
Reached at his home in Vienna, Papathanassiou told The Examiner, “There’s nothing to this,” and referred questions to his attorney, who did not return calls for comment.
Federal authorities stated an investigation of Papathanassiou in September 2007 after he told a U.S. customs official at Washington Dulles International Airport that he had been in Brazil selling farm equipment, when notes found in his luggage showed he was working on an arms deal, court documents said.
Authorities later obtained e-mails sent by Papathanassiou to various weapons manufacturers.
In one e-mail exchange, a Swiss arms dealer suggested Papathanassiou import Swiss-made automatic handguns into the U.S. so Papathanassiou could then export them to Yemen and dodge a Swiss weapons embargo on Yemen, authorities said. The deal Papathanassiou was working out with Khalid Al-Rowaishan, a Yemeni businessman, never went through.
According to court documents, Al-Rowaishan runs KNA General Trading Co. and wanted to buy pistols through Papathanassiou to later sell to the Yemeni presidential guard.
The e-mails also reveal that Papathanassiou was trying to broker deals to sell Canadian-made night vision goggles to Libya, with the understanding they’d be used by border patrol guards. He was working with a Chilean defense company to sell a variety of military goods through that company to the Chilean Marine Corps, and on a separate deal to sell military vehicles to an unnamed buyer in Vietnam.
