By David M. Dastych ——Bio and Archives--March 18, 2008
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“On my web page you can see in addition the flight of February 21, 1998 of Uzbekistan Airways (UZB-3509/3510 ) operated by AN-12 registered UK-11639. The agreement of landing and over-flight for this flight was issued by the Romanian Department of Defence MApN (Acord de survol nr 00096/02.98).This document mentions: the purpose of flight was to transport components of missiles, the property of Army Arsenal (transporta componente de racheta din Arsenalul Armatei ). For the high priority of this flight, the Romanian Air Force issued special permits for Air Traffic Controller (8683 specify for special flights and cargo). The destination of the flight was wrong. Nobody could find out this type of Romanian AA missiles in the Uzbekistan Army or Azerbaijan Army. The second flight was on March 1,1998. Boeing 707 ex-Santa Lucia`s Oliver North Airways company first registered as J6-SLF, now re-registered in Liberia EL-JNS operated by Sky Air together with Air Atlantic Cargo property of a US-Iranian aviation magnate and gun-runner Farhad Azima, a business partner in Heavy Lift company with the Russian arms dealer Victor Bout. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S.Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. This guy had since May 1987 until 2003 an office at Ostend (Oostende) Airport in Belgium, where his aircraft was also periodically stored for maintenance purposes. He donated 1 million USD for the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton (in 2000).”
“Only a few Romanian intelligence agencies covered the import-export firms and were involved in cigarette smuggling on the Bucharest airport and in the free trade zone of Agigea, in the Constanta Sea Port (new and old), to make money for support of the military training of Islamic organizations . This person started up his career as a naval intelligence officer in a Middle East country. His partner in these firms was a Romanian Army General, appointed the head of Guardia Financiare [Financial Police]. In fact, the management of this network of the under-cover firms belonged to Colonel GEORGE DUMITRESCU (ID serial DM no. 365850), an active duty, high-ranking officer of Brigada Antiterorista [Antiterrorist Brigade] of the SRI (The Romanian Homeland Intelligence Service), which coordinated the activities of the Arab citizens and their Muslim brothers in Romania. He was the person who signed all the documents I enclosed in my attachment. His cousin, the ex-personnel head of staff of the Intelligence Academy in the 1990s, was appointed colonel prosecutor of the Military Panel [of the Supreme Court]. In all operations with cigarettes this network was supported by a general and the head of the Economic Counter Intelligence Division of the SRI. This job was very profitable for the general as he could multiply his official salary by many thousand times. Personnel of the SIE (Foreign Intelligence Agency of Romania) based in the Romanian Embassies was responsible for preparing the fake documents necessary for commercial operations of the [arms smugglers] network. They were following the orders of their superiors.”This is only a part of a large dossier compiled by Mr. Valentin Vasilescu. He also identified to me a former (and possibly also present) Romanian partner of Mr. Victor Bout: “His business link with the Romanian Government in 1996-1999 was Colonel Gigel Bratiloveanu of the military enterprise ROMTEHNICA. At that time, his business was to illegally transfer the Romanian Government’s weapons, loaded on Bucharest-Otopeni military apron, for almost a hundred flights with the destinations to: DR Congo, Angola, Iran, Liberia, Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda etc. Now Mr. Bratiloveanu is the commercial representative at the Romanian Embassy in Moscow. He gave to Victor Bout in Moscow a computer memory stick with the price-list of Romanian surface-to-air missile systems for the Columbian FARC guerrillas. Bout’s planes operated not only from Romania but also from the neighboring Republic of Moldova. One of these planes registered in Moldova, ER-75929 operated 73 flights, smuggling Romanian-build weapons for Africa via the military apron of Otopeni-Bucharest airport under Air Acvila (RRM code), a company owned by the Romanian Department of Defense.
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David Dastych passed away Sept.11, 2010.
David was a former Polish intelligence operative, who served in the 1960s-1980s and was a double agent for the CIA from 1973 until his arrest in 1987 by then-communist Poland on charges of espionage. Dastych was released from prison in 1990 after the fall of communism and in the years since has voluntarily helped Western intelligence services with tracking the nuclear proliferation black market in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. After a serious injury in 1994 confined him to a wheelchair, Dastych began a second career as an investigative journalist covering terrorism, intelligence and organized crime.
Other articles by David Dastych