Briton guilty of brokering jets and missiles to war zones

A British businessman has been found guilty of illegally brokering the sale of fighter jets, missile systems and thousands of assault rifles to war zones including Sudan, South Sudan and Libya, following an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs, the tax authority has said.

David Greenhalgh, 68, of Croydon in south London, helped broker the supply of ex-Soviet jets, surface-to-air missile systems, anti-tank missiles and thousands of assault rifles between 2009 and 2016, with none of the deals licensed by UK authorities and some running into tens of millions of dollars.

His business partner, the Greek national Christos Farmakis, 48, was found guilty of similar offences in absentia, having not attended the trial, and HMRC says it is working with international partners to bring him to the United Kingdom to face justice.

The two men were convicted at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday after a nine-week trial and will be sentenced on 22 July. According to HMRC, the pair acted as middlemen to arrange, transport and deliver weapons without the licences required under UK law, using forged end-user certificates that falsely claimed the goods were destined for countries not subject to sanctions in order to conceal where the weapons were really going.

The pair operated at the centre of a complex international network, sourcing weapons and military equipment from defence ministries in former Soviet and Soviet-aligned states, where ageing stockpiles of missiles, fighter aircraft, battle tanks and small arms were available for sale in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia and the Czech Republic. Because many of their customers were banned from buying weapons on the open market, they were willing to pay vastly inflated prices. Greenhalgh ran the business through his Airservices group of companies, registered across the United Kingdom, Greece, North Macedonia and South Sudan, and deliberately routed deals through overseas subsidiaries in an attempt to put the transactions beyond UK jurisdiction, although as a UK national he remained subject to British trade controls wherever he did business.

Edwige Hill, Deputy Director in HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, said the two men “showed a blatant disregard for international sanctions”, seeking to profit from the illegal supply of weapons. The convictions, she said, were “a clear warning to others” that those breaching the UK’s strict controls and brokering supplies to sanctioned and embargoed destinations would face justice, adding that effective enforcement of the licensing regime “contribute[s] to the UK’s national security” and that HMRC would pursue those who try to circumvent it.

Anja Hohmeyer, Specialist Prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service, said the pair had treated the international arms trade “as their personal business opportunity”, systematically sourcing weapons from former Soviet states and attempting to channel them into some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. “They knew exactly what they were doing,” she said, with the men’s own emails showing them discussing how to evade UK licensing controls and falsify end-user certificates, and one document found on Farmakis’s device amounting to “a blueprint for wholesale evasion” of the UK’s arms controls.

The conviction, she said, sent a clear message that UK arms trafficking and brokering laws “apply to anyone subject to this jurisdiction”, wherever in the world they try to conduct their business. Greenhalgh was found guilty of ten counts under the Export Control Order 2008, with Farmakis convicted of nine, and both men face sentencing at Southwark Crown Court next month.