Arms smuggling

German arms-maker accused of gun smuggling

Colombia’s decades-long civil war may be over, but the fallout is just reaching Germany today. Prosecutors in the northern German city of Kiel confirmed this week that they will press charges against five executives with Sig Sauer, a German arms manufacturer. They are expected to face charges of breaking German arms export controls by selling tens of thousands of handguns to the South American country in the last decade.

The accused include senior executives and export managers, according to spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office. Prosecution documents seen by the German broadcaster NDR allege the company illegally shipped 36,628 handguns to Colombia’s national police, via an initial shipment to a sister company in the US.

Sig Sauer is alleged to have made false statements on export license applications between 2009 and 2012, leading government officials to believe the guns were destined for the American marketplace. Yet prosecutors say the German executives had to know the true destination: Only German-made handguns could have met the specifications that its US subsidiary had brokered with Colombian police.