Guilty Plea in Guns-For-Iran PlotThursday August 30, 2007 2:46 PM
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man pleaded guilty in a scheme
to buy thousands of submachine guns and sell them to
Iranians opposed to Iran's president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, court records showed.
Under the plea agreement reached this week, Seyed
Mostafa Maghloubi, an Iran-born U.S. citizen,
acknowledged that he attempted to obtain night vision
goggles and as many as 100,000 Uzi submachine guns
for shipment to Iran, in violation of U.S. laws.
Maghloubi, 49, was the subject of a sting operation
in February, when a person he had reportedly
approached about buying the equipment brokered a
meeting between him and a police detective that
Maghloubi believed was an arms dealer, according to
the plea deal.
Maghloubi eventually received three Uzis and a pair of
night vision goggles, the court papers show, and
intended to ship them to a faction in Iran's government
that is aligned with a former president and political
foe of Ahmadinejad.
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