Eighteen people have been charged in the United States in a plot to smuggle Russian-made weapons into the country from Eastern Europe, federal authorities announced Tuesday. The arrests were made after a yearlong investigation with the help of an informant posing as a weapons trafficker selling arms to terrorists, U.S. Attorney David Kelly said in New York. The informant was able to purchase eight machine guns and was also offered grenade launchers, shoulder-fired missiles, anti-tank missiles and other weaponry from the Republic of Georgia, Armenia and other Eastern European countries, Kelly said. The first arrests were made Monday night with people being taken into custody in New York, Los Angeles and Miami, he said. Kelly added that the ring offered to sell the informant enriched uranium but said during the yearlong inquiry, which included eavesdropping on 15,000 of the suspects' conversations, authorities had no indication that the ring had access to enriched uranium, nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. --More 2256 Local Time 1956 GMT
