US intelligence ops in Greece

In December 2015, US agents from the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) service and officers from the Greek Police's organized crime unit arrested a 51-year-old arms trafficker and owner of a company based in the Jordanian city of Amman, in Aspropyrgos, an industrial town east of Athens. In the months before, the suspect had been negotiating with an undercover HSI agent for the purchase of 200 M4 assault rifles and a corresponding number of scopes and thermal cameras.

The American service first made contact with the suspect in 2014 and in the period leading up to his arrest, the 51-year-old is said to have told the HSI agent that his clients were based in Beirut and the guns would end up in Iraq. The Americans, however, had evidence or indications to suggest that the American-Jordanian national was a supplier for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

His arrest in Greece took...