Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks

In 2007, the palace Palacio el-Mifadil in Marbella, Spain, was home to Syrian arms merchant Monzer al-Kassar. There, al-Kassar got ready to welcome two Guatemalan weapons dealers seeking arms for Colombia’s chief guerrilla movement, FARC. Though he had a legal business career, al-Kassar was best known for supplying arms to states and insurgent groups that would typically be barred from accessing weapons. When asked, al-Kassar denied any role in the trade or any moral responsibility for his connections to those outside the bounds of international respectability. His decades of work in many countries meant he had cultivated connections inside governments, which former CIA agents tell Keefe explained his relatively relaxed air.

Keefe reveals that the meeting was in fact a sting operation staged by the DEA. Keefe meets former DEA agent Jim Soiles, whose interest in al-Kassar dates back decades due to the interconnections between drug trafficking and other illegal criminal enterprises, including weapons sales. Keefe delves into al-Kassar’s biography: his youth as the son of a Syrian diplomat, early criminal career, ties to then-communist Eastern Europe, and career selling weapons from there to various global conflict zones. The secret to al-Kassar’s success, Keefe notes, is changing jurisdictions:

From his home in Spain, he could negotiate between a supplier in a second country and a buyer in a third. The weapons could then be shipped directly from the second country to the third, while his commission was wired to a bank in a fourth. Al-Kassar never set foot in the countries where the crime transpired—and in Spain he had committed no crime (237).

Kassar joined an elite subculture in his move to Marbella, as the city’s location on the coast made it attractive for various types of illegal business. He cultivated an international reputation as a gracious host whose chief interest was his family’s well-being. To round out his picture of al-Kassar’s character, Keefe interviews a former mercenary who worked for Kassar. The man describes an episode from the 1980s: Al-Kassar ordered a mole in his operation to be executed, and the man was never seen again.

Though al-Kassar generally backed Arab causes, he was not a religious zealot and seems to have been primarily motivated by profit. He even supplied weapons to the United States government during the Iran-Contra scandal, when the Reagan administration used extra-legal means to support anti-communist forces in Nicaragua. Keefe points out that most governments “make clandestine purchases from international arms brokers, because using guns from their own country might betray their involvement in covert operations” (242). CIA officials tell Keefe that al-Kassar routinely offered them information or assistance, and while the US government rejected the overtures, al-Kassar likely intervened in other politically sensitive matters.

Keefe turns to the more distant past to explain al-Kassar’s previous entanglements with law enforcement and success at extricating himself. In 1992, he was linked to the sale of weapons used in a hostage-taking aboard an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, in which one American died. Al-Kassar’s lawyers disputed the admissibility of the evidence against him, and many of the witnesses in the case died under mysterious circumstances.

The DEA’s interest in al-Kassar revived after 2001, when the US government became more focused on crimes connected to international terrorism. This led to the legal concept known as “‘extraterritorial jurisdiction,’ which enabled American authorities to investigate and try suspects outside the United States” (244). This was the context within which the agency conducted the 2007 operation that opens the essay. The operation had multiple stages and involved an elaborate script so that al-Kassar would be implicated in an illegal sale and an attack on American interests.

One of the DEA informants, Carlos, arranged a meeting with al-Kassar in Madrid, Spain, ostensibly to complete payment, but in reality to ensure his arrest. Al-Kassar’s US trial began in 2008, after a year of fighting extradition on the grounds that he was not a criminal, but a key resource for Spanish intelligence. Most of the charges were based in new anti-terrorism statutes and focused on al-Kassar’s plans to harm Americans, since he had never actually entered the country.

Al-Kassar’s lawyer claimed the entire sting operation was not proof of malfeasance, as al-Kassar had intended to pass on his information to the Spanish government and had previously collaborated with the CIA, though Keefe is unable to confirm this through his law enforcement contacts. In 2009, al-Kassar was sentenced to 30 years in prison. At his sentencing, al-Kassar insisted again that his detainment would harm global anti-terrorism initiatives.

The family of the man who died in the Achille Lauro hijacking found significant emotional satisfaction in seeing al-Kassar finally face consequences. Al-Kassar’s lawyers still insist he intended to use the sting to see justice done, not perpetrate crime himself. To understand why the sting worked, Keefe posits that al-Kassar’s usual caution failed him—in a period of declining global conflict, it was more difficult to refuse a lucrative opportunity.

Keefe finds one source, a former CIA agent, who agrees that al-Kassar could have been a more valuable asset as a free man than a prisoner. Al-Kassar expresses hope to Keefe he will be exonerated. DEA agent Jim Soiles instead focuses on al-Kassar’s propensity to escape: “maybe, someday, he’ll come around again” (256). Keefe points out in his concluding remarks that al-Kassar remains in prison and all his appeals to date have failed.