Police in Hawaii arrested four businessmen, two of them Indonesian, for attempting to purchase weapons to be smuggled into Indonesia.

Homeland Security Department and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement arrested thebostonchannel the men in Honolulu. They are Hadianto Djoko Djuliarso and Ignatius Ferdinandus Soeharli, of Indonesia, Ibrahim Bin Amran, of Singapore, and a Briton, David Beecroft.

The international arms deal is said to be worth more than $3 million and included plans to purchase these weapons:

• 882 Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns
• 800 Heckler and Koch 9mm handguns
• 16 Heckler and Koch sniper rifles

as well as air-to-air missiles and aviation radar equipment.

The men, who came via Detroit and the far east, claim that the weapons were were to be bought on behalf of the Indonesian government. They met at Honolulu airport and then went to another location to view the weapons, where they were arrested on Sunday.

An indictment abc in a Detroit court identified Djuliarso and Amran as owners of four businesses operating in Indonesia and Singapore. Soeharli financed the purchases and Beecroft attended the meeting in Hawaii to arrange shipment of the items to Indonesia via Singapore, according to court papers.

The authorities are naturally suspicious that the guns may have been destined for terrorist groups in Indonesia. The names of the two Indonesians, however, suggest to me at least that the men are of Chinese extraction.

April 14th. One of the men arrested, Hadianto Djoko Djuliarso, is the owner of a business called P.T Ataru Indonesia, which is connected with the Indonesian military. detik.

January 19th 2007. Hadianto Djoko Djuliarso has pled guilty and faces up to seven years and three months in prison for conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act and money laundering, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. He also agreed to forfeit about $600,000 seized during the investigation.

Djuliarso was arrested in April along with Ignatius Ferdinandus Soeharli, 49, of Indonesia; Ibrahim Bin Amran, 46, of Singapore; and David Beecroft, 44, of the United Kingdom.

Amran, who also pleaded guilty to money laundering, faces up to seven years and three months in prison. Soeharli faces up to four years and nine months in prison. David Beecroft was sentenced in December 2006 to eight months in prison. lasvegassun

February 24th 2007. In a separate case a retired Indonesian Marine Corps general, Erick Wotulo, 59, pleaded guilty in a Baltimore court on the 23rd to money laundering and conspiring to provide arms to the Tamil Tigers terrorist group.

He is said to have conspired last year to export machine guns and ammunition, surface-to-air missiles and night-vision goggles, to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as the Tamil Tigers, operating in Sri Lanka, according to the plea bargain.

Erick was arrested in September in Guam, where he had travelled to meet other conspirators and undercover agents posing as arms merchants. Erick faces a maximum sentence of 15 years for conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organisation and a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for money laundering at his sentencing, scheduled for May 25th.

May 12th 2007. Hadianto Djoko Djuliarso, 42, was sentenced to four years in a U.S. federal prison.