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A Saudi Arabian Cargo Boeing 747 at Sofia Airport on November 4, 2014. Photo: Stephan Gagov

In October last year, plane spotters noted with some excitement that Boeing 747 jumbo jets marked Saudi Arabian Cargo had begun landing at the airport of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.

“A Saudi cargo plane had never come here… for the past 20 years,” explained Stephan Gagov, a veteran Bulgarian plane spotter.

The flights became so frequent that Gagov started a thread on an online plane-spotting forum about them, using the phrase “the regular route” in the title. Spotters reported seeing the planes land twice in late October, once in November, four times in December and once each in March and May this year.

The giant aircraft arrived from Jeddah, loaded up with cargo then flew to the Saudi city of Tabuk, about 100 km from the border with Jordan, noted the spotters, who use online flight-tracking tools.

Gagov estimated the planes took on between 60 and 80 tonnes of cargo in crates each time. He could not see what was inside the crates but he could tell they were heavy.

After the Saudi flights stopped, cargo planes from Abu Dhabi began arriving. Airbus A330F and Boeing 777F aircraft bearing the livery of Etihad Cargo landed in Sofia five times between late June and mid-August this year. Even more recently, on October 19, an Etihad Cargo Airbus 330F flew from Abu Dhabi to the Bulgarian city of Burgas and then to Al Dhafra Air Base, a military installation just south of the Emirati capital.

The Saudi, UAE and Bulgarian authorities have not disclosed the contents of these shipments. But the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, can reveal that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have bought large quantities of weapons and ammunition from Bulgaria in the past two years, almost certainly for use by local forces they support in the war in Syria, and possibly also the conflict in Yemen.

“It’s still more profitable than drug smuggling,” – Bulgarian arms dealer

Bulgaria’s annual report on defence industry exports, which was published in August this year but received no media coverage, states that the government approved more than €85 million worth of munitions and military equipment sales to Saudi Arabia in 2014, with deals to the value of almost €29 million completed by the end of the year.

The Bulgarian government has also told BIRN that it issued permits for the sale this year of weapons to the United Arab Emirates.

Bulgaria makes and stockpiles mainly Soviet-style weapons. Analysts say it is highly unlikely Saudi Arabia or the UAE would buy these for their own forces, which use modern Western weapons, and it is therefore much more plausible they bought the munitions for local factions they back in Syria and Yemen, where Soviet-style arms are widely used.

A well-connected Bulgarian former military officer told BIRN the Saudi purchases were transported on the aircraft seen by the plane spotters and that they were intended for Syrian opposition fighters, with later shipments possibly also being used in Yemen.

An Etihad Cargo Boeing 777 takes off from Sofia Airport on June 30, 2015. Photo: Stephan Gagov

In the past year, the United States has also purchased arms from Bulgaria as part of a $500-million programme to train and equip Syrian opposition forces that has now been abandoned.

Opposition fighters and independent analysts have also told BIRN that Bulgarian weapons are being used in Syria, where more than 250,000 people have been killed and more than 11 million forced from their homes since war broke out in 2011.

Under communism, Bulgaria — a country of just seven million — built an enormous weapons industry, employing 110,000 people and bringing in up to $1.5 billion (€1.3 billion) in hard currency per year. The regime acquired Soviet technology to make small arms and ammunition. It amassed vast stockpiles to support its 100,000-strong military and the possibility of a general mobilisation.

During its 45-year-rule, Bulgaria’s communist party also developed strong trade links with the Middle East and Africa which have been maintained by many traders, including those in the arms business.

Lucrative business

Peering through his large glasses, Nikolay Nikolov casually mentions that he has sat at the same table with Carlos the Jackal, the notorious Marxist militant who was active in the Middle East and Europe in the 1970s and 1980s.

Nikolov, a pseudonym to protect his identity, has been in the arms trade for more than 25 years.

“Everyone gets a cut,” he says, including government officials and brokers. “The commissions are worth a few times the value of the arms deal. If something costs 10 million, the end price is 35 million.”

Sitting in a small cafe in downtown Sofia where he likes to meet and do business, Nikolov chain-smokes and reminisces.

Asked about arms sales to the Middle East, he tells a story about dragging suitcases full of cash through an Arabian desert back in the day.

After the collapse of communism in 1989, weapons production in Bulgaria dropped substantially. The official value of defence exports plummeted to €111 million in 2006. But then sales began to pick up and by 2014 they had reached €403 million, according to government figures.

Bulgarian defence industry exports 2006-2014, in millions of euros. Source: Bulgarian Ministry of Economy reports.

Nikolov says Bulgaria has been selling a lot of weapons from old stockpiles.

“The peak of arms exports was during the wars in Yugoslavia. A lot of weapons were exported to Serbia and Albania,” he says. “Back then we had stockpiles worth billions, now we have just a few hundred million.”

Although production and sales are just a fraction of pre-1989 levels, arms dealing in Bulgaria remains a highly lucrative business. “It’s still more profitable than drug smuggling,” Nikolov says.

Gulf interest

Saudi Arabia has not been a major customer for Bulgarian arms firms in recent years. But that changed in 2014.

The Bulgarian government’s report says it issued permits for munitions and military equipment sales worth €85.5 million to Saudi Arabia last year — including ammunition worth €65.4 million, large calibre weapons to the value of €12.5 million and small calibre weapons worth €5 million. By the end of 2014, Bulgarian companies in the sector had completed deals for exports to the Gulf state worth €28.9 million.

Bulgaria’s Economy Ministry, which oversees the arms trade, told BIRN in a statement that the deals included small arms as well as light and heavy weaponry.

A UN report listed 827 light machine guns and 120 SPG-9 recoilless anti-tank guns as part of Bulgaria’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia in 2014.

Ben Moores, a senior analyst at defence consultancy IHS Janes, said such weapons were likely going to Syria or Yemen. The Saudi military is armed with Belgian-made light machine guns and does not use SPG-9s, he said.

“This type of weapon is very unlikely to be used by the Saudi military, but it is very heavily used in Yemen, in Iraq and in Syria,” he said.

The Bulgarian former military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told BIRN the flights between Sofia and Saudi Arabia were to transport Bulgarian weapons for Syrian opposition groups. After the planes landed in Tabuk, the arms were loaded onto trucks and transported to a distribution centre in Jordan for Syrian opposition forces, he said.

Saudi Arabia is a major backer of fighters opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Riyadh financed a big purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia for Syrian opposition forces, the New York Times reported in 2013, citing American and Western officials “familiar with the purchases”.

In a BBC interview in late October 2015, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir openly acknowledged that Riyadh supplied arms to Syrian opposition fighters. “We have to contribute to changing the balance of the power on the ground,” he said.

The Bulgarian former military officer said some of the weapons shipped to Saudi Arabia “may have also been used for Yemen, as the later flights coincided with the beginning of the Saudi operation there”. Saudi Arabia started military action in Yemen in late March in support of forces loyal to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Unlike Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates already had a recent history of buying arms from Bulgaria. A diplomatic cable from the US embassy in Sofia, published by WikiLeaks, reported that the UAE funded a 2010 deal to buy tens of thousands of assault rifles, 100,000 high-explosive charges, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition for Yemen’s then-government.

The cable also said that Bulgaria consults with the US embassy on potentially controversial arms deals. Contacted by BIRN, the embassy declined to say whether it was aware of other countries buying Bulgarian weapons for use in Syria.

Bulgarian defence industry exports to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, in millions of euros. Source: Bulgarian Ministry of Economy reports