(Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)
A sinister scheme to smuggle nuclear weapons materials from China to Iran using American dollars was recently uncovered by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The Daily News reported the discovery on April 7:
A Chinese financier who peddles nuclear weapons material to Iran was indicted Tuesday for illegally running tens of millions of dollars through a half-dozen New York banks.
Le Fang Wei, 37, duped six unwitting banks with an assortment of aliases and phony businesses despite a federal banking ban against him, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said.
The deception allowed Wei and his company to continue banking in U.S. dollars—and to continue selling banned weapons material to the Iranian military, the indictment said.
Wei was charged with conspiracy and falsifying records.
For the moment, Wei remains free in his native country, but the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office plans to ask the Chinese government to extradite him to the United States for trial.
The illegal shipments that Wei’s company—Limmt Economic and Trade Company Ltd—has made to Iran to date include:
- 33,000 pounds of a specialized aluminum alloy used almost exclusively in long-range missile production.
- 66,000 pounds of tungsten copper plate, which is used in missile guidance systems.
- 53,900 pounds of maraging steel rods, a super-hard metal used in uranium enrichment and to make the casings for nuclear bombs.
Last year, German intelligence reports seen by Spiegel revealed that Iranian, North Korean and Syrian scientists were working side by side to build a reactor in Syria capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium before the Israelis bombed it in September 2007. Now a Manhattan District Attorney’s Office report reveals that a Chinese national has been smuggling nuclear weapons materials into Iran since at least 2006.
“This case,” said one law enforcement source close to the Manhattan case, “shows how [the Iranians] are going ahead full-steam to get a nuclear bomb. Long-range missiles they pretty much have already.”
Iran is the king of the Middle East and is committed to destroying Israel and the West. Business contacts in other anti-American nations—such as North Korea and China—are doing all they can to help Iran achieve its goals.
For more information on Iran’s nuclear goals, read “Ahmadinejad’s Apocalyptic Ambitions” and “Close to Armageddon.” •
