Russia-Linked Arms Trafficker, Corrupt African Officials Tried to Supply Mexican Cartel With Surface-to-Air Missiles
24th March 2026
Federal prosecutors in Virginia have charged four men — a Bulgarian arms trafficker with ties to the notorious Russian weapons dealer Viktor Bout, and several African co-conspirators with connections to the governments of Uganda and Tanzania — with conspiring to supply the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación with a $58 million military arsenal that included rocket launchers, surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft drones, and high-powered explosives the brokers boasted could bring down helicopters.
The international arms trafficking conspiracy deepens an already troubling portrait of the military reach and intelligence ties of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación. Court documents unsealed by the Department of Justice, in an investigation first reported by The Bureau, revealed that Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security publicly issued threats directing the cartel to execute Goldie Ghamari — a prominent Iranian-Canadian activist and former Ontario politician — at her Ottawa home, offering a $250,000 bounty. The arms case suggests that the cartel Iran chose as its instrument of political assassination was simultaneously seeking the weapons inventory of a mid-tier military force.
The investigation was carried out by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Operations Division — an elite, little-known counternarcotics unit that deploys high-grade intelligence tradecraft and has built its reputation targeting criminals of international reach, including those with connections to senior officials in hostile and corrupt states.