The United States Justice Department announced on Monday that Belgian citizen Jacques Monsieur pleaded guilty on Monday in U.S. District Court in Mobile, Alabama to charges of conspiring to illegally export airplane parts from the United States to Iran in violation of the American trade embargo against the Islamic Republic. Monsieur was arrested in August and charged in a six-count indictment with conspiracy, money laundering, smuggling and violating the Arms Export Control Act.
Monsieur contacted an undercover agent in February, seeking engines for the F-5 fighter jet and the C-130 military transport aircraft for export to Iran, according to a Justice Department statement, which said that the United States sold those aircraft to Iran before the 1979 revolution. Under the plan, the parts would be sent to Iran via Colombia and the United Arab Emirates.
Monsieur faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000.00 fine.