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The Mexico gig: Heckler & Koch busted for illegal arms sales

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After a lengthy trial that lasted almost a year, the German arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch (H&K) was found guilty of illegally selling 5,000 G36 rifles to Mexico between 2006 and 2009, violating the German War Weapons Control Act.

Two former employees of the firm, Marianne B. and Ingo S., were given suspended prison sentences plus a fine of $90,000. Moreover, the company was fined $4.2 million, which accounts for the approximate value of the G36s. However, the former CEO and main contact with the German government’s arms export department was found innocent.

Politicians in Germany’s Left Party have been pressuring the government to ensure increased transparency in defense companies. “From this verdict, we see what a problem it is that in Germany we have no way of prosecuting a company. So, it’s in the nature of the process that the bosses never leave a paper trail. It will also be very difficult to prosecute CEOs,” said Jan van Aken, an MP with the Left Party and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

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  • Avatar
    Mason

    Da Kommrade

  • Avatar
    Daniel

    Very good point.

  • Avatar
    Daniel

    Whole lot of people in the world these days. And that’s exactly what the executives at H&K are. Their actions not only endangered the people of Mexico, but this country as well.

  • Avatar
    Daniel

    Eric Holder, Killary and Obama, were going on tv every day, saying they needed to violate our rights, because the guns they were trafficking into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, was causing so much violence and instability, that it was going to spill over onto our side of the border, and they got away with it. The fact that he got re-elected, was a very bad symptom about how bad this country has been infiltrated by enemies, foreign and domestic.

  • Avatar
    Mason

    So they are upset about losing profits, over illegal arms sells. Weapons that could have, or probably ended up in the wrong hands, with CARTELs? Probably exacerbating the drug wars and implosion of our southerly neighbors. Thanks H&K.;