Long-time Viktor Bout aide Richard Ammar Chichakli was nabbed by authorities in the Australian city of Melbourne, where he reportedly applied for a government law enforcement post. U.S. prosecutors said Thursday that they would press for Chichakli’s extradition to New York, where he faces conspiracy charges related to Bout’s alleged attempt to illegally buy American planes.
The Australian Age newspaper reported that Chichakli, based in Moscow in recent years, turned up Thursday in Melbourne, where he had applied for a government Protective Service Office post. Chichakli, a financial wizard who has worked closely with Bout for more than two decades, had been under a UN-imposed international travel ban, and it was not clear how he had managed to fly to a staunch U.S. allied-nation. During a brief court hearing, Chichakli identified himself as Jehad Almustafa, according to The Age.
In New York, U.S. Attorney Preet Bhara said that Chichakli faces trial on charges of conspiracy to violate U.S. export restrictions, money laundering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and six counts of wire fraud. Chichakli was first indicted on charges related to Bout’s attempted airplane purchases in 2010. That case against Bout was dropped just before the Russian’s extradition to the U.S. from Thailand later that year, but a new superseding indictment was filed by the U.S. on Jan. 2. That could indicate prior American knowledge of Chichakli’s impending arrest, stemming either from a new sting operation or the government’s quiet tracking of the fugitive.
According to U.S. officials, Chichakli and Bout helped set up an Africa-based air company, Samar Airlines, that continued to operate after both men were targeted with U.S. Treasury financial sanctions. The sanctions barred any U.S. companies from dealing with Bout and his associates. In 2007, the two men allegedly contracted to buy two Boeing aircraft from U.S. firms. The indictment alleges that Bout and Chichakli electronically transferred $1.7 million through New York banks, routing the money from shell companies in order to evade the sanctions. Treasury officials detected the deals before they went through and blocked the transactions.
Chichakli, a Syrian-born accountant who ran several Bout subsidiaries in a Dallas suburb, fled the U.S. in 2005 after Treasury named him in sanctions and authorities raided his offices. Chichakli left the U.S. using frequent flyer miles, turned up in Cairo and then Moscow, where he rejoined Bout. Chichakli sued the U.S. to overturn the sanctions, a move rejected by a U.S. court in 2008. He also constructed an elaborate website defending himself and Bout, savaging officials as well as the authors of Merchant of Death and posting lavish photographs of fruit plates that he assembled as part of his culinary hobby.
In other news, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a motion from Viktor Bout’s lawyer for more time to file a legal brief to overturn his 2011 conviction on federal conspiracy charges. Bout’s lawyer, Albert Y. Dayan, had asked for 90 extra days to prepare his case, but the court denied the request the same day that Chichakli was arrested. The court ordered Dayan to make his case by Jan. 30.
Bout is housed in the federal medium-security penitentiary at Marion, Ill., serving a 25-year sentence for conspiring to sell weapons to undercover agents posing as terrorists.
—AP, By Larry Neumeister and Stephen Braun, “An associate of a notorious Russian arms dealer was arrested in Australia and charged with conspiring to buy planes so that weapons could be transported to the world’s bloodiest conflicts, a U.S. prosecutor announced Thursday
—The Age, “Federal and state police swooped on Richard Chichakli in Melbourne on Thursday after the US requested his extradition on charges linked to arms shipments to notorious African war criminal Charles Taylor.”
—Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announcement of Chichakli arrest