WASHINGTON – On April 4, the United States transferred greater than 5,000 AK-47s, machine weapons, sniper rifles, RPG-7s, and greater than 500,000 rounds of seven.62mm ammunition to the Ukrainian navy. The switch will present sufficient provides to equip one Ukrainian brigade with small arms rifles, which can assist Ukraine defend in opposition to Russian aggression. The weapons had been seized by the U.S. Central Command Navy within the Arabian Sea on their approach from Iran to Yemen, the place sanctioned teams, together with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), are straight linked to the Houthi motion. We are supporting. Subsequently, the Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture lawsuit for the seized munitions, leading to an order by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on December 1, 2023, transferring possession to the United States.
“Civil forfeiture stays an necessary software in our efforts to discourage or disrupt terrorist organizations just like the Revolutionary Guards,” mentioned U.S. Attorney Graves. “Its use on this case is a testomony to the facility of our counter-threat monetary work in stripping dangerous actors of authorized management of their belongings. We are proud to facilitate the efforts of our companions, together with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, within the struggle to protect the nation.”
According to court docket paperwork within the civil forfeiture case, U.S. Navy Central Command has seized weapons in 4 seizures of stateless dhows: two from 2021 and two from 2023. These seizures led to the invention and seizure of 4 massive caches of standard weapons. This included lengthy arms, anti-tank missiles, and related munitions, all of which had been discovered to be primarily Iranian, Chinese, or Russian-made.
The motion follows the federal government’s profitable confiscation case in March 2023 for greater than 1 million rounds of ammunition that had been additionally transferred to the Ukrainian navy from Iran en path to Yemen. These confiscation actions handle the unlawful trafficking of superior standard weapons programs and parts by sanctioned Iranian entities that straight assist the Houthi motion in Yemen and the Iranian regime’s terrorist actions throughout the area. . The forfeiture grievance alleges an elaborate plan by the Revolutionary Guards to secretly transport weapons to organizations that pose a critical menace to U.S. nationwide safety.
HSI Washington Field Office and DCIS Mid-Atlantic Field Office are main a serious investigation into the Iranian arms smuggling community, with important help from U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in conducting the seizures.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stuart D. Allen, Brian P. Hudak, Rajbir S. Datta, and Anna D. Walker of the District of Columbia, and Trial Attorneys S. Derek Shugart and Joshua Champagne of the National Security Agency; , introduced this motion with the help of: Paralegal specialists Brian Rickards and Angela De Falco.