Sgt. Rock
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NEW YORK — Two former American soldiers — one nicknamed "Rambo" — and a German ex-soldier faced charges Friday that they plotted to kill a U.S. drug enforcement agent and an informant for $800,000 in an assassination plan created by drug agents who wanted to catch trained snipers gone bad, authorities said.
The charges were announced by prosecutors in Manhattan, where an indictment unsealed in federal court portrayed a trio of ex-soldiers eager to kill for money.
"That's fun, actually for me that's fun. I love this work," an ex-German soldier was quoted in court papers as saying. The documents described numerous conversations at meetings in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean from January through September that were recorded by Drug Enforcement Administration agents building a case through confidential sources posing as Colombian drug traffickers.
"The bone-chilling allegations in today's indictment read like they were ripped from the pages of a Tom Clancy novel," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference. "The charges tell a tale of an international band of mercenary marksmen who enlisted their elite military training to serve as hired guns for evil ends."
The indictment described 48-year-old Joseph Hunter, also known as "Rambo," as a contract killer and leader of the group of ex-snipers. Hunter, a resident of Thailand, was being flown Friday to New York after he was expelled from Thailand, Bharara said. Hunter was to appear in court Saturday.
Hunter recruited several ex-soldiers in late 2012 and early this year to be a security team for drug traffickers, said the indictment. According to the court papers, the DEA's sources promised Hunter at a March meeting in an Asian country that his security team would be protecting thousands of kilos of marijuana and would be seeing "tons of cocaine and millions of dollars."
The charges were announced by prosecutors in Manhattan, where an indictment unsealed in federal court portrayed a trio of ex-soldiers eager to kill for money.
"That's fun, actually for me that's fun. I love this work," an ex-German soldier was quoted in court papers as saying. The documents described numerous conversations at meetings in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean from January through September that were recorded by Drug Enforcement Administration agents building a case through confidential sources posing as Colombian drug traffickers.
"The bone-chilling allegations in today's indictment read like they were ripped from the pages of a Tom Clancy novel," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference. "The charges tell a tale of an international band of mercenary marksmen who enlisted their elite military training to serve as hired guns for evil ends."
The indictment described 48-year-old Joseph Hunter, also known as "Rambo," as a contract killer and leader of the group of ex-snipers. Hunter, a resident of Thailand, was being flown Friday to New York after he was expelled from Thailand, Bharara said. Hunter was to appear in court Saturday.
Hunter recruited several ex-soldiers in late 2012 and early this year to be a security team for drug traffickers, said the indictment. According to the court papers, the DEA's sources promised Hunter at a March meeting in an Asian country that his security team would be protecting thousands of kilos of marijuana and would be seeing "tons of cocaine and millions of dollars."
