Making a Killing : The € 1.2 Billion Arms Pipeline to Middle East

Making a Killing: The € 1.2 Billion Arms Pipeline to Middle East

As Belgrade slept on the night of Nov. 28, 2015, the giant turbofan engines of a Belarusian Ruby Star Ilyushin II-76 cargo plane roared into life, its hull laden with arms destined for faraway conflicts.

Rising from the tarmac of Nikola Tesla airport, the hulking aircraft pierced the Serbian mist to head towards Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

It was one of at least 68 flights that in just 13 months transported thousands of tons of Central and Eastern European weapons and ammunition to Middle Eastern states and Turkey which, in turn, funneled arms into brutal civil wars in Syria and Yemen, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has found. The flights are just a small part of € 1.2 billion in arms deals between the countries since 2012, when parts of the Arab Spring turned into an armed conflict.

▻https://www.occrp.org/en/makingakilling/making-a-killing
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