Han Solo of Nukes
from LA Times [reprinted, sub required]

ROCKVILLE, Md. - As they race to dismantle a global black market in nuclear weapons components, U.S. authorities are focusing on an unusual case: an Orthodox Jew from Israel accused of trying to sell nuclear weapons parts to a business associate in Islamic Pakistan.

Asher Karni, 50, currently a resident of South Africa, was arrested at Denver's international airport as he arrived with his wife and daughter for a New Year's ski vacation. Friends and family have been pressing for his release, describing him as a hard-working electronics salesman just trying to earn a living.

However, federal authorities contend that Karni is something more: a veteran player in an underground network of traffickers in parts, technology and know-how for the clandestine nuclear weapons programs of foreign governments.

The Karni case offers a rare glimpse into what authorities say is an international bazaar teeming with entrepreneurs, transporters, scientists, manufacturers, government agents, organized-crime syndicates and, perhaps, terrorists.

Authorities say the case also provides a classic illustration of how illicit nuclear traffickers operate - readily skirting export bans, disguising the real use for products, using middlemen to buy from legitimate manufacturers and routing shipments through several countries.

Such traffickers have flourished amid little effective response by the United States, its allies or the U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite repeated warnings, authorities say.

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"There are Iranian networks, Chinese networks, Middle East networks, sophisticated networks buying technology and parts all over the world," said a senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who cited sensitive ongoing investigations in demanding anonymity. "They're operating in the United States every day. Some of them are family businesses, where fathers pass it on to their sons."

One such network came to light five months ago when top Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan admitted selling made-to-order nuclear weapons programs to Iran, Libya and North Korea for tens of millions of dollars.

Authorities have kept Karni in custody since his arrest, arguing that he is a flight risk and a threat to national security. He has been charged with violating the federal Export Control Act and other laws aimed at curbing nuclear proliferation. Ensconced in the county jail in a Washington suburb, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years if convicted on all counts.

Karni is accused of orchestrating a deal to send as many as 200 electrical components that can be used for medical or nuclear weapons purposes to a Pakistani businessman named Humayun Khan.

Karni and Khan have denied knowingly breaking any U.S. laws, and both say they have no ties to Abdul Qadeer Khan's network.
Some U.S. officials believe the ultimate destination of the electrical components would have been the Pakistani government, which is also suspected of complicity in Abdul Qadeer Khan's network. Federal agents plan to travel to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, as part of their investigation.

The components, called triggered spark gaps, are sophisticated electrical switches that have nonmilitary uses, including breaking up kidney stones. But because they emit rapid-fire electrical charges, they are also ideal as nuclear detonators, prompting the U.S. government to restrict their export.

In court documents filed in Karni's case in Washington, authorities say Humayun Khan, in Islamabad, placed an order with Karni for 200 of the switches last summer, at $447 apiece, and that Khan has links to Pakistan's military and a militant Islamic political group.

Pakistani officials insisted in interviews with the Times that the government was not involved in any effort to buy U.S. products prohibited for export to their country, a ban prompted in part by Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

But the Times has confirmed that Humayun Khan's family import-export business, Pakland Corp., was a purchasing agent for that nuclear program as far back as 1975. At the time, Pakland was negotiating at least one deal for suspected nuclear weapons material with Alfred Hempel, a German industrialist, former Nazi and central figure in the already-burgeoning global nuclear bazaar.

Hempel, who died in 1989, did as much to spread nuclear weapons in his day as did Abdul Qadeer Khan, perhaps more, said Gary Milhollin of the Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

During the 1970s and '80s, Hempel used cargo planes, bribes and a secret network of operatives to supply countries in South Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East with nuclear weapons materials. Like Abdul Qadeer Khan, he made millions and, despite years of scrutiny by nuclear proliferation watchdogs, escaped any kind of discipline.

The Homeland Security Department official said investigators plann to aggressively pursue any connections between the Karni case and what may remain of Hempel's network. Humayun Khan, the official said, appears to have been involved in illegal deals going back at least several years.

Karni and his lawyers have declined to comment on the case. But authorities say he has already provided them with a rare window into the nuclear underworld, without even knowing it.

Over the years, Karni has built a global list of intermediaries and clients as a salesman of sophisticated military and aviation electronics equipment, most recently through his company in South Africa.

In a stroke of good fortune, federal agents were able to get an inside view of one of those business deals. Authorities launched their investigation in July, after an anonymous South African tipster said Karni had been using front companies, straw buyers and misleading shipping documents to sell restricted U.S. products to Pakistan and India. The tipster said Karni was in the process of buying as many as 400 of the switches for Humayun Khan.

Agents with the U.S. departments of Commerce and Homeland Security monitored the deal with updates from the tipster, including Karni's e-mail correspondence and shipping information for the switches.

Karni first tried to buy the switches directly from PerkinElmer Optoelectronics of Salem, Mass., according to an affidavit filed by Special Agent James Brigham of the Commerce Department's Office of Export Enforcement.

The affidavit and other court documents lay out the alleged criminal conspiracy to evade U.S. export control laws, including e-mails between Karni and Khan.

A PerkinElmer official told Karni he needed to submit required U.S. certificates detailing what the switches would be used for, and promising not to send them to blacklisted countries such as Pakistan or use them in nuclear-related applications. Karni told Khan he wouldn't submit such paperwork.

"Dear Asher, I know it is difficult but thats (sic) why we came to know each other," Khan replied. "Please help to re-negotiate this from any other source, we can give you an end user information as it is genuinely medical requirement."

Karni then contacted Zeki Bilmen, head of Giza Technologies of Secaucus, N.J. On Aug. 6, Giza ordered 200 of the switches from PerkinElmer for $89,400, submitting certificates saying they would be used in a South African hospital.

Authorities contacted Perkin-Elmer officials, who told them a typical hospital order was for five or six switches. In response, the U.S. agents asked them to discreetly disable the first batch of 66 switches and send them on.

The original tipster told authorities that Karni might list a lithography company at Khan's address as the end user, not Khan's company, Pakland PME, and later provided Federal Express tracking numbers showing a circuitous route through Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

Traffickers frequently ship restricted U.S. items to Dubai, Malta and other unrestricted trade zones worldwide and then re-export them to third countries to hide the origin or destination and avoid laws aimed at curbing nuclear proliferation, authorities say.

Karni did just as the tipster predicted, and agents tracked the package at every step.

Soon after his arrest, Karni and his case were transferred to Washington. He was eventually moved from federal custody to the county jail, where he receives kosher food and is allowed special prayer dispensation.

posted by prof_booty | 01:30 PM