Acquiring weapons, equipment and goods for others. These articles examine alleged procurement deals and stings, and what the evidence in each shows about who the buyer was.
An undercover DEA operation tested Lebanese lawyer Joseph Asmar and facilitator Iman Kobeissi with cash presented as cocaine proceeds, from a Paris café handover to offers of protection, weapons and aircraft parts. The stings in Paris, Brooklyn, Belgium and Atlanta, and Asmar’s guilty plea.
A DEA sting led Czech police to arrest Ali Fayad and two associates in 2014. While Czech courts weighed extradition, five Czechs were abducted in Lebanon; they came home the day Fayad was freed. The sting, the captivity, the exchange and what became of each defendant.