Friday, April 13, 2018

Bulgaria, Russia, China, Iran and Syria

The US Justice Department has arrested Zhelyaz Andreev, 29, a Bulgarian national, for charges related to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Government and violations of the Syria Trade Embargo.  He worked or the Bulgarian office of AW-Tronics, a Miami, Florida-based company.  Their website says “permanently closed”, but the other AW-Tronics is in Hong Kong.

Andreev was charged with conspiracy to violate IEEPA and the OFAC regulations by exporting dual-use goods to Syrian Arab Airlines, the Syrian government’s airline, which is an entity designated and blocked by OFAC for transporting weapons and ammunition to Syria in conjunction with Hezbollah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).  A local Florida paper says the three other principals at the company, and eight foreign nationals, were named in the indictment, but those names do not appear in the Wednesday release.  

This is convoluted as can be, but we have dual-use aircraft parts going to Syria, arranged by a Bulgarian, to help out a Syrian transfer of US goods by an airline that transports weapons to terrorists and the IRGC.  Believe me, there are Russian and Chinese connections in there somewhere, what with all the left-over Communists in Bulgaria and a NATO-member government in flux.  The Russians have done everything they can to destablize the political situation there.   The Chinese have hundreds of these little companies doing the Intelligence Services bidding, and this one seems to fit that bill.   Movies are made about this kind of thing.

All of this goes back to Syria, where the US has threatened to blast away at almost anyone who condones the use of chemical weapons.  Those targets are complicated by having IRGC and Russians mixed in with Hezbollah, Syrian Army troops, and a bunch of terror groups on both sides of the action.  For you Mission Impossible fans, the Director will disavow knowledge of anyone or anything that happens there.



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