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Chairman PICKLE. I thank you, Mr. Davis, and I am going to ask Mr. Burns now if he could proceed to make his statement.

STATEMENT OF DAVID E. BURNS, FORMER SPECIAL AGENT, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE, SACRAMENTO, CALIF.

Mr. BURNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In the interest of time you have my written statement in front of you and rather than read the entire thing, I will summarize it. Mr. Davis essentially outlined the investigation.

The one thing that I would like to bring to your attention, kind of cut to the chase of this whole thing, I think the reason you guys are sitting here, some of the problems I encountered in this investigation revealed that even though he was procuring some 20 items, only 4 or 5 of them were actually controlled at the time. I think that is the thing this committee is looking at.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement follows:]

STATEMENT OF DAVID E. BURNS

FORMER SPECIAL AGENT

U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE

My name is David Eugene Burns. I have 11 years of law enforcement experience including employment as a Deputy sheriff with Douglas County, Nevada, Sheriff's Office and El Dorado County, California, Sheriff's Office, assignment to the Drug Enforcement Administration's South Lake Tahoe Narcotics Task Force, and employment by US Customs Service as a Special Agent/Criminal Investigator. I have recently been hired by the Bureau of Land Management as a Special Agent, and will begin employment with that agency in May 1991.

Additionally, I have 11 years of military service including three and one half years on active duty with the US Army where I served in the 2nd Battalion (RANGER), 75th Infantry, and eight years in the Reserves and National Guard including assignments to the 12th Special Forces Group, the 4th Force reconnaissance Company, 4th Marine Division (Reserve), and various units in the California National Guard.

I am currently on active duty with the California National Guard, assigned as a Operations Non-commissioned Officer in the Counternarcotics Branch. Prior to going on active duty with the National Guard, I was employed by US Customs as a Special Agent. In March 1988, I was employed in this capacity, and assigned to the Sacramento Resident Office.

On March 19, 1988, I was the agent designated to receive all duty agent calls. I received a call from the Chicago office of US Customs about a suspicious person, identified as Fouad Mohamed, travelling to Sacramento from Cairo, Egypt. Pursuant to this call, myself and other agents from the Sacramento Office conducted a surveillance of the individual when he arrived. My investigation identified the passenger travelling under the name Fouad Mohamed, as Fuad Algamal. I identified the person that met him at the Sacramento Metropolitan Airport as Dr. Abdelkader Helmy. the ensuing investigation into Dr. Helmy's activities included searching his trash every week, monitoring his movements, obtaining the toll records of his telephone calls from both his home and office, and, eventually, a court ordered monitoring of his telephone calls.

This investigation reveled that Dr. Helmy, James Huffman of Lexington, Ohio, and several Egyptian nationals were involved in a conspiracy to illegally export the components and ingredients necessary to manufacture components of a Medium Range Ballistic Missile which would have had a range of some 1800 kilometers and be capable of carrying a payload of 500 kilograms. The construction of this missile system was being financed by Iraq, and was being engineered by scientist from West Germany and Italy working in conjunction with Egyptian and Argentinean military organizations. During my investigation, I learned that Dr. Helmy was attempting to purchase the chemical ingredients, metal appliances, and insulating materials to construct solid rocket motors, ablative carbon material for the nose cones and rocket exhaust nozzles, and radio telemetry antennas. Additionally, I learned that Dr. Helmy had been involved in attempts by the Egyptian military to purchase Fuel Air Explosion bombs and technology, guidance systems for the Stinger missile system, and missile test range facilities.

I learned that Dr. Helmy had obtained the patent information on the most critical components of the Fuel air Explosion bombs including the dispenser and the ignition mechanisms. He later admitted to obtaining those patents under the direction of Colonel Ahmed Al-Din Khairat, also known as colonel Hussam Yossef, who was also directing the operation to obtain the missile components.

Documents recovered from Dr. Helmy's trash, and later from his home, office, and computer revealed that Dr, Helmy was purchasing or directing the purchase of all of the ingredients for manufacturing rocket engines. Interestingly, very few of the raw ingredients, even when purchased with the intent to combine them with other ingredients to manufacture rocket engines, are controlled by the US Government. It became evident during my investigation that Dr. Helmy intended to circumvent what export

STATEMENT OF DAVID EUGENE BURNS
Page 2

controls were in place on the few controlled items by smuggling all of the materials out of the United States.

My investigation revealed that helmy and Huffman intended to smuggle the items out of the United States by having the items shipped to a warehouse, called D & N Packing in Shelby, Ohio, that specialized in transshipment of materials . Once at the warehouse, the items were either placed in shipping containers built by huffman, or had all their original markings painted out, and were then shipped to D. F. Young, the official freight forwarder for the Egyptian Procurement Office, located in Baltimore, Maryland. to facilitate the shipping, false manifest of lading were prepared that concealed the true contents of the crates and drums.

On May 27, 1988, nine items containing materials destine for the missile project were shipped to D. F. Young this way. customs agents in Baltimore observed that these items were placed on a pallet and loaded on an Egyptian military C-130 cargo transport airplane and shipped out of the country. When they examined the manifest and export documents for the flight, they found no mention of the nine items.

I learned during my investigation that the missile project was called CONDOR II by the Argentinean government, and the Badr-2000 by the Egyptian government. The program utilized engineers from West Germany and Italy who were familiar with the Pershing II missile, Egyptian engineers, and Argentinean engineers and missile test ranges to build this missile system. There was evidence recovered during this investigation that Colonel Khairat had asked Dr. Helmy about rendering fissionable some Uranium 238 the Egyptian government had purchased. Dr. Helmy later told me that the warheads for this missile system would have been nuclear, chemical, or conventional high explosive depending on the ability of Egypt and her partners to manufacture the various types of warheads.

From my military experience, and from the knowledge I gained during this investigation, I realized that if this type of missile was introduced into the Middle East, or South America, it would be extremely destablizing, and potentially would have to be confronted by soldiers from the United Nations, undoubtedly including Americans. I also realized during this investigation that the various laws enacted to control the export of this type of technology and material had serious flaws and loopholes.

I urge this committee to examine the strengthening of the various laws to include: requiring companies to notify the US Government when materials that have innocent applications as well as military applications are purchased, much like the procedures required for the purchase of precursor chemicals for illegal drug manufacturing; enacting legislation that would punish the attempt of, or actual illegal exporting of, the component parts or raw ingredients of military hardware where there is clear intent to circumvent export laws, or to assemble the parts or ingredients once outside US jurisdiction; and to strengthen the Missile

Technology Control Regime.

While this investigation may represent an example of how the various federal agencies investigate the illegal export of munitions, I believe it more importantly identifies some of the weaknesses in our laws. Thank you for the opportunity to address this committee, and I hope some of the lessons I learned may be used to further the control of illegal exportation of military hardware and munitions.

Chairman PICKLE. Does that complete your general statement? Mr. BURNS. Yes, sir.

Chairman PICKLE. All right.

Now, the Chair would ask Mr. Rangel to proceed.

Before we proceed, let me ask the next witness to come and we will have him before us.

The Chair will now call Mr. Abdelkader Helmy to the witness stand.

I am going to have to ask you though to be sworn in. Would you raise your right hand? Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Mr. HELMY. Yes, sir.

Chairman PICKLE. The record will show that the gentleman has answered in the affirmative. Will you have a seat, sir?

Mr. HELMY. Yes, thank you.

Chairman PICKLE. Mr. Rangel.

Mr. RANGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, let me thank Agents Burns and Davis for such good law enforcement work. You are to be commended and you are a credit to the Customs, as well as to the Nation.

As a result of your success in this case which led to a conviction, have you been able to find out what, if anything, the Egyptian Government did in connection with the diplomats that were involved in this conspiracy?

Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.

Mr. RANGEL. As a result of the plea of Dr. Helmy, were other Americans involved that were not arrested or convicted that you know of? Did Dr. Helmy indicate how he was able to get the substances licensed and unlicensed?

Mr. DAVIS. Everybody that was involved in the conspiracy was indicted. The method that they used to obtain these items was to tell the manufacturers that they had a use other than for rocket fuel, here in the United States. They said it was for research projects or other things like that.

Mr. RANGEL. Well, one of the Ohio firms repackaged a lot of these things.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. RANGEL. And relabeled them.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. RANGEL. Did you or your colleagues have an opportunity to interrogate these people and find out whether or not they knew exactly what they were doing?

Mr. DAVIS. They were interviewed and as far as my recollection goes what they stated is that they knew the materials were going on to Baltimore, Md., and they had no idea that it was going out of the country.

Mr. RANGEL. And did you believe them?

Mr. DAVIS. We had no other evidence to disprove that.

Mr. RANGEL. Well, in your interrogation of Dr. Helmy, did he share with you any other American citizens that were working with him or as he put it in your testimony, covering his trail?

Mr. DAVIS. From the evidence that we had, from the wiretap and the other documents we were able to recover, it is our belief that

everybody that was in the United States and subject to our law was indicted and that we had identified all of them.

Mr. RANGEL. Did there come a time that your investigation was being hampered by the State Department or any other U.S. agency or department?

Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.

Mr. RANGEL. And any statement that the State Department tried to derail your investigation to your knowledge, would not be a true statement?

Mr. DAVIS. To my knowledge, it would not be.

STATEMENT OF ABDELKADER HELMY, LOMPOC, CALIF.

Mr. RANGEL. Dr. Helmy, let me thank you for the inconvenience that this committee has caused you in bringing you to this committee and thank you for your cooperation.

You are an American citizen.

Mr. HELMY. Thank you.

Mr. RANGEL. You are an American, right?

Mr. HELMY. Yes, sir, I am.

Mr. RANGEL. And your wife is an American?

Mr. HELMY. Yes.

Mr. RANGEL. And your children were born here, in the United States?

Mr. HELMY. Yes, sir.

Mr. RANGEL. Do you feel any sense of obligation or support for the United States and its national security?

Mr. HELMY. Yes, sir, as a matter of fact, if you look to my record, I am a person who contributed to the research and development of the space shuttle. I did a lot of work on the cruise missiles, the harpoon program. I did a lot of work on the development of the 120mm gun. And I did a lot of contribution to the defense and the aerospace industry in this country before I get involved with any of this problem.

Mr. RANGEL. And you are quite proud of the contribution that you made to our national defense and security?

Mr. HELMY. Absolutely, sir.

Mr. RANGEL. But when some people encouraged you to share your talents and information with foreign governments, who were they that approached you?

Mr. HELMY. It was, as a matter of fact, it started out very slow, which I did not realize. If I had realized that it would have ended up to this, I would not have just get involved with this. But it was the two friends which was my friends back in Egypt which is the Defense Minister of Egypt which was my friend when he was a younger person and another person which is he was the manager or the director of the special programs for the Egyptian Government.

Mr. RANGEL. And, of course, you didn't think that it would get this involved or that you would end up in jail and bring disgrace to your family?

Mr. HELMY. Yes, sir.

Mr. RANGEL. But what was it that encouraged you to accept their offer to get involved in the first place? What was the motivation?

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