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The Finnish Connection Then, just as we thought there was no way things could get any wierder, we got an email from Brugger & Thomet in Switzerland which just said that our request would be handled by their agent Finnrappel Oy in Helsinki, Finland.Interesting. We phoned Finland and spoke to a man called Olli Salo. We first asked him about getting 200 MP5 sub-machine guns to Algeria? He said no problem. Then we asked him if he could get the guns to Zimbabwe? He said no problem. We said wow. To supply arms you have to have an import permit from the country buying the guns and an export license from the country exporting them. We said to Olli, don’t we need an Export License? He said; 
"All the paper we need is an import permit from the country of the destination. That’s the only paper we want..." Odd, we thought. Lets phone Brugger & Thomat back and see if he’s for real. 
"I would consider it a partner. Its kind of like our office in Finland, if you want." - Heinrich Thomet, Brugger & Thomet, Switzerland, 25 April 2002 
"he’s our agent for many parts of the world with stuff like this and the fact is that the regulation we have there its very liberal and its working very smooth." - Heinrich Thomet, Brugger & Thomet, Switzerland, 25 April 2002 So would these guns be coming from Germany or Switzerland? We asked Olli. 
"MP5's parts are made in Germany and assembled by hand in Switzerland." - email from FinnRappel Oy, Finland, 26 April 2002 But if Olli was like Brugger & Thomet’s office in Finland, did that mean it would still be a Swiss deal. We asked Olli again. 
"Officially we are the only ones dealing with you...because obviously it can't be solved if Switzerland is involved in any way...regarding you" - FinnRappel Oy, Finland, 24 April 2002 Why? 
"It has to come outside European Union. If it comes from Germany we’d need an export license but when it comes outside it doesn’t. That’s the trick." - FinnRappel Oy, Finland, 26 April 2002 OK. But what exactly was Olli saying to us? Why didn’t he need an export license? 
"We don’t need export do we?" "No no" "And that’s because its trans-shipment?" "Yeah. That’s the reason" - Mark talks to FinnRappel Oy, Finland, 26 April 2002 So the Finnish partner of the Swiss agent for Heckler & Koch seems to be prepared to break an EU arms embargo by exporting MP5 parts from Heckler and Koch’s factory in Germany to Switzerland, where the guns are assembled and sent on an export license to Finland, where Olli does his “trick” and the guns are suddenly not being imported into Finland anymore, but transported to Zimbabwe. How weird is that?
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