A conviction landed over secret weapons offers tied to the world’s darkest struggle zones, as one man’s cautious distance from UK regulation out of the blue disappears.
David Greenhaigh (Picture: HMRC)
A British businessman has been discovered responsible of brokering unlawful offers involving former Soviet fighter jets and weapons to flood most of the world’s worst struggle zones with lethal weapons – together with Sudan, South Sudan and Libya. In a UK first-of-its sort prosecution David Greenhalgh, 68, of Croydon, south London, and his Greek affiliate Christos Farmakis, 48, have been convicted of brokering offers for the chilling arsenal of weapons.
Collectively, between July 2009 and December 2016, the pair tried to dealer the availability of a spread of managed navy items sourced from former Soviet states and Jap European international locations. These items included surface-to-air missile methods able to bringing down plane, Mi-24 fight helicopter gunships and related weapons methods, battle tanks, anti-tank missile launchers and rocket-propelled grenades, fighter jets, and tens of hundreds of AK-47 assault rifles together with tens of millions of rounds of ammunition.
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Not one of the offers have been licensed by UK authorities and a few bumped into tens of tens of millions of {dollars}, the HM Income and Customs (HMRC) investigation uncovered.
Farmakis did not attend the trial at Southwark Crown Court docket and HMRC is working with worldwide companions to carry him to the UK to face justice.
The pair acted as middlemen to rearrange, transport and ship weapons with out the licences required underneath UK regulation.
To hide the true vacation spot of the weapons, they used solid end-user certificates falsely claiming the products have been destined for international locations not topic to sanctions.
Greenhalgh was the proprietor and controlling director of the ‘Airservices’ group of corporations, which he operated throughout a number of jurisdictions together with the UK, Greece, Macedonia, Hong Kong, and South Sudan. He intentionally used his abroad corporations for what he described in his personal correspondence as his “delicate tasks”, believing he may place himself past the attain of UK regulation. He couldn’t.
– (Picture: Carlos Garcia Granthon/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)
Farmakis was a London-based enterprise adviser employed by Larger London Enterprise, an organization funded by the London boroughs. Behind that respectable façade, he ran a Cyprus-registered firm known as Black Betty Consulting by means of which he performed negotiations for the availability of managed weapons and navy items that gave rise to a variety of counts on the indictment.
The supposed locations included Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, Iraq, and Iran – all international locations embargoed underneath UK regulation on the time.
The Crown’s case uncovered emails the place the defendants overtly mentioned the necessity to forge finish person certificates, use false delivery paperwork and route deliveries by means of third international locations to hide the place weapons have been finally headed.
Picture of an AK-47 (Picture: Larger Manchester Police / SWNS)
In one other e-mail discovered on his gadgets Farmakis wrote: “Any exercise with out an EUC is prohibited and topic to legal investigations” – making clear he understood exactly what he was doing.
Greenhalgh, writing a few proposed deal to produce 100,000 AK-47 rifles to South Sudan, famous that “Iraq/Syria is hoovering up each piece of small arms in market” and warned a contact that “Europe WILL NOT settle for your paperwork. You will have assist from different Brothers.”
Edwige Hill, Deputy Director in HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, stated: “Greenhalgh and Farmakis confirmed a blatant disregard for worldwide sanctions, in search of to revenue from the unlawful provide of weapons.
“These convictions are a transparent warning to others that you’ll face justice for breaching the UK’s strict controls and brokering unlawful provides to sanctioned and embargoed locations.
A mounted instance of the Soviet and Russian surface-to-air missile (SAM) system “2K11 (Picture: George Chernilevsky / SWNS.com)
“Efficient controls and enforcement of the licencing regime contribute to the UK’s nationwide safety. It’s a precedence for the UK Authorities and HMRC will pursue those that attempt to circumvent it.”
Anja Hohmeyer, Specialist Prosecutor from the Crown Prosecution Service, stated:
“Greenhalgh and Farmakis handled the worldwide arms commerce as their private enterprise alternative – systematically sourcing weapons from former Soviet states and trying to channel them into among the world’s most harmful battle zones, together with Libya and South Sudan.
“They knew precisely what they have been doing. Their very own emails confirmed them discussing the way to evade UK licencing controls, falsify finish person certificates and disguise the true nature of their offers. One doc discovered on Farmakis’s system was nothing lower than a blueprint for wholesale evasion of the UK’s arms controls.
“This conviction sends a transparent message: UK arms trafficking and brokering legal guidelines apply to anybody topic to this jurisdiction, wherever on this planet they attempt to conduct their enterprise. The CPS won’t hesitate to prosecute those that search to revenue from battle.”
They face sentencing on 22 July 2026.
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