Federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted the co-head of a Maryland-based think tank with a series of charges stemming from what they allege was his off-record defense of Chinese cases while attempting to sell weapons on behalf of a Chinese company to a number of foreign. countries.
Gal Luft, a dual Israeli and US citizen and co-director of the Institute for Global Security Analysis, was also charged with violating Iranian sanctions and making false statements to federal agents, according to the November 2022 report. accusation which was open on monday.
Luft, 57, is currently a fugitive, prosecutors said. He was arrested on the charges in Cyprus in February but fled after posting bail.
In recent months, Luft has made headlines by alleging in hitherto unsubstantiated public statements promoted by House Republicans that the Biden family received payments from Chinese citizens linked to Chinese intelligence and that Hunter Biden had a mole. inside the FBI.
“It’s very credible,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told Newsmax last week.
Luft did not respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors allege that he has been involved in “multiple international criminal schemes” for several years.
“Subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to further Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking US government official; acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement,” said Damian Williams, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The indictment alleges that he reached a $350,000-a-year settlement with the head of a non-governmental organization affiliated with a Chinese energy company in 2015 to promote Chinese causes.
One of the things Luft later had to do was work to “recruit” and “educate” a “former high-ranking US government official.” to make public statements that were in the interest of China for a fee, the indictment says. That official became an “adviser to then-president-elect” Donald Trump in 2016, the indictment says.
The indictment does not name the former official, identifying him only as “Individual-1,” but references pro-China articles written by James Woolsey.
Woolsey was the CIA director from 1993 to 1995 under then-President Bill Clinton, joining the Trump campaign as a senior adviser before the 2016 election and spending time on Trump’s transition team, reports show. public reports.
A representative for Woolsey had no immediate comment.
Luft also allegedly “conspired with others and attempted to negotiate illicit arms transactions with, among others, certain Chinese individuals and entities” and foreign countries, including Libya, the United Arab Emirates and Kenya, prosecutors said.
The deals took place between 2014 and 2017, with munitions including bombs, rockets and grenade launchers, the indictment says.
Luft also allegedly worked on a scheme for China to buy Iranian oil, despite US sanctions against Iran. The indictment says he instructed a co-conspirator to identify the oil as coming from Brazil, not Iran.
Luft is also accused of making false statements to federal agents when questioned about allegations of arms trafficking and sanctions evasion during an interview in Brussels in March 2019.
He apparently gave a different version of the content of that meeting to the House Oversight committee.
“Gal Luft, a highly credible witness to the corruption of the Biden family, provided incriminating evidence to six FBI and DOJ officials at a meeting in Brussels in March 2019. We have no reason to believe that the FBI and DOJ acted on this information”. eat tweeted on Friday.
“Americans deserve answers,” he wrote.
In a Newsmax interview that same day that Comer linked to in the tweet, he acknowledged that Luft was the informant who said he was missing in May. “The people at MSNBC who made fun of me when I said we had a missing informant should feel like fools right now. This is her worst nightmare,” he said.
In a statement Tuesday, Comer noted that the Chinese energy company Luft worked for had financial ties to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.
NBC News previously reported that Hudson West III, a company financed by the company and its president, paid about $4.8 million to a Hunter Biden-controlled company called Owasco PC. The payments were made in 2017 and 2018, according to a Senate Republicans report – after Biden’s father left the White House.
“Gal Luft was interviewed by the FBI and allegedly provided information about the Bidens and [the Chinese energy company]. The House Oversight Committee intends to obtain these records from the FBI,” Comer said in his statement Tuesday.
He also downplayed the relevance of the criminal allegations.
“Many of the people who are connected to the Biden family businesses have been charged with crimes or are in prison,” he alleged.
While the indictment was unsealed Monday, Luft, who prosecutors say has not returned to the United States since 2017, had complained about the charges for months, suggesting he was the victim of a conspiracy.
“I was arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request from the US. The US alleges that I am an arms dealer. It would be funny if it wasn’t tragic. I have never been an arms dealer. DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim and Hunter Biden,” said tweeted in February.
Luft said in a recording released by the New York Post last week that he met with the FBI and “volunteered to inform the US government of a possible security breach and compromising information about a man who is running for the next president,” stating that “I was now being persecuted by the same people I reported.”
He also said he skipped bail because he “didn’t believe he would get a fair trial in a New York court.”
