Modern Day Arms Smuggling

From the International Herald Tribune:

Tomislav Damnjanovic boasts that he has flown just about every possible cargo, from food and construction materials to cigarettes and weapons - hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons. Over the past 15 years this former airline employee turned airline owner has been a central figure in an arms smuggling network connecting the Balkans with Africa and the Middle East.

The article mentions how the war in Iraq have been a boom for the arms traffickers and brokers.

Their moment came when he and other dealers shifted their focus away from smuggling and began to supply the United States and its allies - mostly from old stockpiles of weapons in Eastern Europe. Between 2003 and 2006, Damnjanovic emerged as the biggest air shipper of weapons from the Balkans to Iraq on behalf of the United States, working generally through subcontractors in a trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the report, which was issued recently by an agency funded by the United Nations.

The global trade in arms trafficking is estimated to be $10 billion.