One of the world's largest arms dealers detained in Évora

It was a horse deal that led to the arrest of the infamous Belgian arms dealer, one of the largest in the world, Jacques Monsieur was found hiding in a shelter near Herdade do Zambujal, in Évora.

For the past 35 years he has been involved in many military conflicts. According to Belgian TV channel VTM television, there is no armed conflict that he has not been at least partly involved in.

Always a close collaborator with Iran, he was involved in the Iran-Contra and provided weapons to Tehran in the 1980s in the war against Iraq. Moreover, he sold automatic weapons, ammunition and even tanks, helicopters and airplanes to the Middle East between 2006 and 2009.

Jacques Monsieur, 66, was arrested near Évora at “a large country house", where he had been hiding for almost a year, after being sentenced in 2018 to four years in prison in Belgium, alongside, a fine of €2 million for arms trafficking to Libya, Chad, Pakistan and Iran. This sentence was given after having appealed the first sentence - three years in prison and € 300,000 fine.

Monsieur is known to have a fondness of horses, which is ultimately what led to his arrest this week under a European mandate. He had a farm in France that he sold last March, and decided to transport nine horses from the farm to Portugal. It was the detection of an invoice of 2,500 euros for the transport of nine horses to Portugal and that were in France that allowed Belgian police to track Monsieur to Évora, working in close collaboration with the Portuguese and French police.

A Belgian police statement was revealed adding that the notorious individual was located thanks to "intense cooperation between Belgian, French and Portuguese investigators.”

According to the Belgian TV channel, VTM, Jacques Monsieur will be "present at a court in Portugal" today.

Comments  

0 #8 ADN Ed 2019-08-19 11:16

Please view https://algarvedailynews.com/readers-views/16811-readers-comments-guidelines.
Repeated abuse of our guidelines will lead to commenting privileges being suspended.

+1 #7 Charly 2019-08-19 09:51

Dear Ed, why did this column become a place of hatry, insulting and incriminating one each other ??? Please let that stop immediately and do no more publish all this rubbish coming from "frustrated pensioners" and "unhappy brexiteers". Thank you.

-3 #6 Malcolm.H 2019-08-17 20:16

Its a bit daft to be shipping horses around from one horse eating country Belgium (remember the final sad WW1 bidding scenes in War Horse?) through another horse eating country France to finish in yet another horse eating country Portugal as though these horses had a value over and above their weight in meat. If he had only done the transport deal with an abattoir he would still be free.

+2 #5 Charly 2019-08-17 19:45

One has to understand that in Belgium there is a double standard for weapon exports: the Flemish scrupoulously respect all international weapon agreements, the Walloons don't they are still today large weapon producers (think of FM and the many high tech companies developing all kinds of sofisticated electronic components for military weapons and vehicules).

+1 #4 DonegalArt 2019-08-17 09:05

You are correct dw

0 #3 Brandon 2019-08-17 08:56

If he was involved in the Iran-Contra arms deal he must be a USA government employee.

+6 #2 Peter Booker 2019-08-17 08:25

Quoting dw:

The world's largest arms dealers are the US and UK governments, also involved in many military conflicts, but no sign of any arrests there.

Monsieur was supplying arms to the wrong side, in other words those regimes not allowed to buy from UK and US. (France is also a major arms manufacturer, and so is Czech Republic and Israel.)

+15 #1 dw 2019-08-16 19:55

The world's largest arms dealers are the US and UK governments, also involved in many military conflicts, but no sign of any arrests there.

Refresh comments list

You must be a registered user to make comments.
Please register here to post your comments.