Weapons Smuggling Suspect Is Extradited; Hearing on Bail Set

More than three years after he was indicted, a man believed to be the middleman in Europe for a San Diego-based ring that smuggled military parts to Iran has been extradited from West Germany and is in the federal Metropolitan Correction Center here awaiting trial.

A detention hearing will be held Jan. 4 to determine whether Saeid Asefi Inanlou, 41, should continue to be held without bail, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Steve Crandall, one of the federal prosecutors in the case.

Crandall said that Inanlou was extradited to San Diego last Monday after being arrested in West Germany. Inanlou pleaded innocent Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Roger C. McKee on 51 counts of stealing government property, conspiracy, exporting defense articles without a license and making false statements to customs officers.

“He is the Iranian connection who was actually funneling the arms . . . directly to Iran,” Crandall said. “Obviously, he’s an important player.”

Faces Long Sentence

If convicted on all counts, Inanlou faces “well over 100 years” in prison, Crandall said.

Federal prosecutors believe that Inanlou was the middleman in Europe for a 10-member smuggling ring that shipped stolen F-14 jet fighter parts to Iran for repairs to American-made planes purchased under the regime of the late shah. When the shah was overthrown and the Ayatollah came to power, the U.S. government embargoed the sale of jet parts to Iran.

Prosecutors say the smuggling ring operated between January, 1981, and July, 1985, illegally exporting parts worth $7 million to $10 million. The jet parts were stolen from Navy ships, as well as military warehouses in the Philippines, Norfolk, Va., and the North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado.

Crandall said Thursday that Inanlou was “certainly one of the three masterminds” in the smuggling ring.

The other two, brothers Edgardo and Franklin Agustin, have already been sentenced for their part in the operation. Edgardo Agustin received 18 years and a $100,000 fine. Franklin Agustin was sentenced to 13 years and a $100,000 fine. Most of the others involved in the ring have received sentences ranging from 366 days to seven years.

According to court testimony and documents made public in previous trials, Edgardo Agustin provided the initial contact between his brother and Inanlou. Franklin Agustin, a Philippine national living in Tierrasanta, then recruited others--including his wife, two sailors and a civilian worker at a Navy warehouse--to take part in the smuggling ring.

Franklin Agustin and his wife, Julie, received the stolen material, hid it in a self-storage locker in Tierrasanta and shipped it directly to Inanlou in England, prosecutors said.

Telephone records showed Inanlou and Franklin Agustin had 130 telephone conversations in one 2 1/2-year period, with 80% of those calls being made “immediately or subsequent to a known (parts) shipment,” court documents said.

Although Inanlou’s prominence in the case was never a question, prosecutors have been continually frustrated in their attempts to have him extradited to San Diego from his London home since the indictments were made public in 1985, Crandall said.

However, Inanlou left London eight months ago for West Germany, and negotiations between the U.S. State Department and the West German government culminated in his arrest and extradition, officials said.