By John Shiffman / Inquirer Staff Writer
From Yardley, U.S. agents crafted an intricate, high-stakes pursuit of
weapons dealers. It took five years and spanned the globe
YARDLEY, APRIL 2004
To capture a global arms smuggler, you can’t just throw up a website, install some phone lines, and expect everything to fall into place.
Brokers buying sensitive weapons and technology for the Chinese, North Koreans, and Iranians are too smart for that. You need a bricks-and-mortar shop, a place buyers can eyeball, an office where foreign scouts and spies can wander in the front door unannounced – or at least view via satellite on Google Earth.
In 2004, undercover agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, created such a storefront along a tree-lined road in the Philadelphia exurb of Yardley.
The leased office, sandwiched between a chiropractor and a dentist, would become the launching point for one of the most ambitious national security investigations in ICE’s brief history.
The mission was risky, rare, and expensive. Over the same years, even the CIA failed repeatedly with similar endeavors.
The agents decorated the Yardley office like any import-export business. Beside computers and desks they scattered fliers and business cards with the company logo. They hung military posters, and stacked copies of Jane’s Fighting Ships and other encyclopedias of modern warfare.
They created a public-records trail, complete with backdated state and tax documents. They left fake invoices strewn across a desk. They wired the place with cameras and microphones, and staffed it with two undercover Homeland Security agents, including a 32-year-old agent from South Jersey named Patrick Lechleitner.
A former Virginia cop, Navy analyst, and National Security Agency investigator, the affable Lechleitner floated easily among the law enforcement, military, and intelligence communities.
Now, he played two roles. In Yardley, he was an undercover arms broker, trolling Internet bulletin boards for smugglers and fielding queries from shady foreigners. Elsewhere in the Philadelphia area, he interviewed American contractors who called in tips about suspicious overseas requests.
On April 20, 2004, a cool, cloudless morning, Lechleitner looked into such a tip. He met a local factory owner who’d received a query, supposedly from Dubai, for jet-fighter parts.
On April 20, 2004, a cool, cloudless morning, Lechleitner looked into such a tip. He met a local factory owner who’d received a query, supposedly from Dubai, for jet-fighter parts.
“He seemed almost offended by the bluntness of the e-mail,” Lechleitner recalled, especially the dubious point of origin. “We both knew that it had to be Iran.”
Lechleitner studied the owner, a first-generation American. The agent needed his help. But could he trust him? Could he risk letting him in on the undercover operation? Yes, he decided, he’d have to, if he wanted to catch the Iranian.
Lechleitner told the owner to string the guy along.
“Tell him to contact me,” the agent said, handing up a card from the Yardley undercover company. “Tell him we might have what he needs.”
Shadow War: Hunting Iranian Arms Brokers (The Philadelphia Enquirer)
Wow! That’s a really neat awensr!