Canadian police say two former United Nations employees in Montreal have been accused of participating in a plot to sell Chinese-made drones in Libya.
Canadian Police spokesman Sergeant Charles Poirier confirmed that the alleged crimes took place between 2018 and 2021, when the two men were working for the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency based in Montreal.
Poirier said the defendants were Fathi bin Ahmed Mahouk, a 61-year-old Canadian, and Mahmoud Mohammed Al-Suwaii al-Sayeh, a 37-year-old Libyan, who were accused of violating UN sanctions related to the Libyan civil war.
“What we found was that through some shell companies, they tried to sell this Chinese military equipment to Libya, which is a direct violation of the federal regulation,” Poirier said.
Poirier noted that the regulation prohibits anyone in Canada from providing military equipment to any of the factions that were fighting in the Libyan civil war, or helping to fund those groups, noting that the alleged plot would have benefited one of the two main factions in the conflict that ended in 2020.
“The second part of this scheme was the export of Libyan oil to China, so at this time, the oil fields were under the control of General Khalifa Haftar and the plan was to sell millions of barrels of crude oil to China without anyone knowing about it,” the Canadian police spokesman revealed.
Boiser confirmed that the first defendant, Fathi bin Ahmed Mahouk, was arrested on Tuesday morning at his home in the Montreal suburb of Saint Catherine, while Mahouk’s partner Mahmoud Mohammed Al-Suwaii Al-Sayeh is still on the run, and a red notice was issued against him from Interpol and an arrest warrant across Canada.
Poirier noted that investigations did not show that equipment or crude oil had reached their alleged destination, but if that happened, “the defendants would receive several million dollars a month in commissions.”
“The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) strongly condemned any actions by individuals contrary to the organization’s values and stressed its cooperation with police investigations and its compliance with Canadian laws and United Nations standards.
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