Accused Romanian-born arms trafficker gets 10 years in U.S. prison

[TomSea]

To whom was he trying to sell weapons? The ploy was to Colombian Rebels.

Accused Romanian-born arms trafficker gets 10 years in U.S. prison
[Reuters]
By Nate Raymond
Reuters  December 2, 2016

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Romanian-born man was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison after he was convicted on U.S. charges that he conspired with two former European officials to sell $17 million worth of weapons to undercover informants posing as Colombian rebels.

Virgil Flaviu Georgescu, 44, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams in Manhattan after a federal jury in May found him guilty on charges, including that he conspired to kill officers and employees of the United States.

At trial, Georgescu denied wrongdoing and claimed he engaged in the deal to help the Central Intelligence Agency, calling the agency in 2012 to inform it of what he understood was a plot by the Colombian rebel group FARC to procure weapons.

But Abrams said she did not accept that claim, saying Georgescu appeared to have at best had a "change of heart" after those calls and later "simply chose to lie and try to get others to lie to avoid the consequences of his conduct."

Georgescu, a U.S. citizen born in Romania, was arrested in Montenegro in 2014 following a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sting operation.

That sting also resulted in the arrests of Cristian Vintila, a former director of the Romanian agency responsible for buying arms for its military, and Massimo Romagnoli, a former member of Italy's parliament.

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