Two charged in plot to trade Chinese drones for Libyan oil
UN aviation agency employees accused of conspiring to traffic weapons
It was an international conspiracy to traffic military weaponry and crude oil half a world away, in Libya.
But Canadian police allege the plot was hatched in Montreal, in the corridors of a United Nations agency. There, RCMP say, two employees of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) conspired between 2018 and 2021 to violate UN sanctions by shipping Libyan crude oil to China in exchange for Chinese drones to be used in the service of a warlord who has been leading his forces against the North African country’s internationally recognized government.
Police say it’s yet another example of Chinese foreign interference allegations, only this time the target of the alleged plot was Libya.
One of the accused, 61-year-old Fathi Ben Ahmed Mhaouek, a Canadian citizen, is alleged to have conspired to broker purchases of Libyan oil between “prohibited entities” and China.
The second man, Mahmud Mohamed Elsuwaye Sayeh, 37, is alleged to have created foreign front companies intended to hide the sales and purchases of sanctioned military equipment, particularly Chinese military drones.
The UN sanctions that prohibit countries from buying Libyan oil or selling arms to the country are meant to avoid inflaming the fragile political situation that has reigned in Libya since the fall of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Currently, Libya is effectively sectioned into eastern and western parts, each led by its own administrations and fielding its own armed forces. Both sides are employing drones in their military arsenals, according to reports.
“The impact of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) on the political and security situation in Libya cannot be overstated,” the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based research group, noted in 2020. “Most significantly, the proliferation of UAVs contributes to prolongation of the conflict.”
The use of Chinese aerial drones in foreign conflicts also allows the country to improve and upgrade its world-leading technologies without itself having to go to war.
Sgt. Charles Poirier, an RCMP spokesperson, said their investigation showed that the conspiracy involved plans for the Chinese drones to be purchased by Khalifa Haftar, who leads the eastern-based Libyan National Army.
Haftar is a storied figure who participated in Gadhafi’s 1969 coup, then plotted to overthrow the dictator while imprisoned in Chad in the 1980s, for which he was sentenced to death. Released from jail in 1990, he fled to the United States, became an American citizen and only returned after Gadhafi was killed in 2011.
Hafter announced plans to seek Libya’s presidency himself in a planned 2021 election before it was cancelled.
Poirier said the two people charged in the conspiracy stood to gain millions in commissions if the scheme had been put into action, but the arrests were announced before any transfers of sanctioned oil or military equipment could be made.
One of the men charged in the conspiracy, Mhaouek, is a Canadian citizen and a resident of Sainte-Catherine, Que., a town just south of Montreal.
The other person charged, Sayeh, is a Libyan citizen. Police have issued an international arrest warrant, or Red Notice, with Interpol, the global policing agency.
International Civil Aviation Organization said in a statement that the two men were “former employees ... who left the organization a number of years ago.”
Sayeh’s LinkedIn page identifies him as a consultant on aviation security who worked with the UN agency in Montreal since October 2015. A Montreal-area civil aviation consulting company, Aero Evolution, currently lists Sayeh among its employees, identifying him as a consultant and former ICAO official and an expert in aviation security and air transport development.
Aero Evolution did not respond to telephone calls or an email requesting comment Tuesday.