On 27 January, Canada’s Global News published a report by Andre McIntosh titled ‘Ex-UN official from Montreal nabbed by FBI for alleged role selling Chinese weapons to Libya’. According to the report, the FBI has arrested and charged a former top UN agency executive from Montreal for allegedly attempting to broker more than $1 billion worth of illicit arms deals between China and Libya between 2019 and 2023. The ICAO employee agreed with a colleague to supply Libyan militants with powerful military drones, weapons and computer systems to operate them so the armed group could more rapidly win a civil war, the FBI complaint alleged. In exchange, according to the complaint, China would offer ‘favourable business opportunities in a peaceful and prosperous post-war Libya under the new regime it backed’.
Read the full report here.