Sarkis Soghanalian

Who was Sarkis Soghanalian?

Sarkis Garabet Soghanalian, nicknamed Merchant of Death, was an international private arms dealer who gained fame for being the "Cold War's largest arms merchant" and the lead seller of firearms and weaponry to the former government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.

Soghanalian, then a permanent resident living in Virginia Gardens, Florida, was hired on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency to sell arms to help Iraq in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War. With the encouragement of the Reagan Administration and the backing of US intelligence agencies, he oversaw the transaction of several significant arms deals, including the sale of artillery from France.

In addition to Iraq, he also sold weapons to groups such as the Polisario forces in Mauritania, the Phalange militia during the Lebanese Civil War, to Latin American countries such as Nicaragua, Ecuador, and to Argentina during the Falklands War. He extended his services to other regions of the world including Africa. Prior to the beginning of the Persian Gulf War, Soghanalian appeared in several television interviews, explaining detail the work he had done in Iraq, along with naming several top US government officials who were involved in the arms transactions.