Arms Dealer Pleads Guilty in Stolen Check Case

An international arms dealer with close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court on Monday to defrauding City National Bank of $250,000 in a stolen check scam.

Sarkis Soghanalian, 72, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for wire fraud, but prosecutors have agreed to recommend leniency in exchange for his testimony against other suspects.

U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew ordered him to return June 4 for sentencing.

In court Monday, Soghanalian admitted depositing the stolen check into a Paris bank account in the name of his Panama-based company, TIDR.

Soghanalian acknowledged keeping 40% of the proceeds as a commission for his services, and distributing the rest to two cohorts who stole the check, Harry Diramarian and Hrant Mikaelian. Both previously pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Terri A. Law said after Monday’s hearing that Soghanalian will testify for the government next month in the trial of Araik Asatryan, who is charged in a related stolen check case.

Over the years, Soghanalian has brokered billions of dollars worth of weapons and munitions, often in support of Third World insurgencies.

His clients have included the Christian militia during the Lebanese civil war, Argentina during the Falklands War with Britain and the Nicaraguan Contras. Some of those deals were aided or tacitly approved by the U.S. government, according to public records.

Soghanalian, who has owned homes around the world, was prosecuted in Miami in 1991 for conspiring with two former officials of Hughes Helicopter Corp. to smuggle 103 combat helicopters to Iraq during that nation’s war with Iran in 1983.

At trial, Soghanalian’s lawyer argued that Reagan administration officials encouraged him to sell the helicopters to Iraq. Nevertheless, he was convicted and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison.

He was released after two years on the recommendation of prosecutors after he reportedly helped U.S. authorities break up a Middle East counterfeiting ring that was circulating millions of dollars in fake $100 bills.