As SayUncle is reporting, an executive at Smith & Wesson is facing a federal indictment, along with 22 others. I wouldn’t toss the suggestion that this could be politically motivated lightly, but what has my suspicious is what they are charged under:
The indictments charged the individuals, including Smith & Wesson vice president for sales Amaro Goncalves, with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering involving the sale of items including guns and body armor, among other things.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act essentially makes it a crime to bribe foreign officials. My understanding from people involved in international business, is that bribery of foreign officials is pretty much par for the course if you want to do business in certain countries, like China, Russia, or most of the third world. That would lead me to believe that Smith & Wesson is hardly alone if some of their business practices involve bribing foreign officials. You can’t really do business in many places of the world without paying bribes.
Maybe I’m off base here, and prosecutions under the FCPA are a lot more common than I thought, which would mean this isn’t a case of selective prosecution at all. But it’s hard for me to believe this isn’t a commonly flouted law, which would cause me to wonder what, in particular, motivated the feds to bring charges in this case.
UPDATE: More info here, courtesy of The Firearms Blog. The arrests were made at SHOT? Not politically motivated at all! No, sir. It would appear to be that revenge may be at least a partial motivator, though:
As part of the FBI sting operation, an unidentified business associate who was a former executive for an arms manufacturer arranged a meeting between the arms sales representatives and undercover FBI agents who posed as representatives of an African country’s minister of defense.
And evidence this type of operation is indeed unusual:
Breuer said the investigation was the largest action ever undertaken by the Justice Department against individuals in an FCPA case. He also said it marked the department’s first large-scale use of undercover techniques in an FCPA investigation.
“We’re steadily pushing this unacceptable practice out of the business playbook by prosecuting companies and individuals who ignore the law, as well as by working with our international counterparts in their efforts to prevent and prosecute foreign bribery,” Breuer said.
He said the Justice Department currently has 140 open FCPA investigations. Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division, said 20 agents were working on FCPA cases full time.
I wonder if this was a way to go after the firearms industry in a way that we couldn’t rightly complain, because they are breaking the law, after all. Unfortunately just about everyone is a federal criminal these days. Perhaps this marks the feds cracking down on this practice in general. I’m sure it will do wonders for the economy and job creation if our corporations are unable to do business in large chunks of the globe because the feds won’t let them pay bribes.
