UAE announces foiling an attempt to smuggle weapons to the Sudanese Army

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that Security Services thwarted an attempt to “illegally smuggle weapons and military equipment to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF),” according to the official Emirates News Agency (WAM).

The agency quoted UAE Attorney General, Hamad Saif Al Shamsi on Wednesday as saying, “Security Services were able to thwart an attempt to smuggle military equipment to the Sudanese Armed Forces after arresting members of a cell involved in mediation, brokerage, and illegal trade in military equipment without obtaining the necessary licenses from the relevant authorities.”

The Emirates News Agency (WAM) added, “The defendants were arrested during an inspection of ammunition inside a private plane carrying approximately (5 million) pieces of (7.62×54) caliber ammunition -Goryunov- at one of the country’s airports. Part of the proceeds of the financial transaction were also seized from two of the defendants in their private rooms at a hotel.”

The Attorney General stated, according to the agency, that “The investigations revealed the involvement of the cell members with the leadership of the Sudanese Army. The cell includes the former director of the Sudanese Intelligence Service, Salah Gosh, a former officer in the Service, a former advisor to the Minister of Finance, a politician close to Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, Yasser Al-Atta, in addition to a number of Sudanese businessmen. They concluded a military equipment deal that included Kalashnikov weapons, ammunition, machine guns, and grenades, worth more than millions of dollars.”

Attorney General, Al Shamsi went kn to explain that, “The weapons were transferred from the Sudanese Army to the importing company inside the country using the ‘hawaladar’ method through a company owned by one of the fugitive cell members who works for the Sudanese Armed Forces, in coordination with Col, Osman Al-Zubair, the head of financial operations for the Sudanese Armed Forces. The aforementioned took place after forging commercial contracts and invoices that proved —contrary to the truth— that the money was for a sugar import deal.”