The head of a US think tank has been charged with acting as an unregistered agent of China, as well as seeking to broker the sale of weapons to Kenya.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Gal Luft, a citizen of the United States and Israel, is accused of recruiting and paying a former high-ranking US government official on behalf of principals based in China in 2016.
He did this without registering as a foreign agent as required by law.
Prosecutors allege Luft brokered a deal for Chinese companies to sell weapons to Kenya and other countries including Libya and the United Arab Emirates.
He is also accused of setting up meetings between Iranian officials and a Chinese energy company to discuss oil deals, despite US sanctions on the Middle Eastern country.
The prosecutors said Luft traded despite lacking a licence to do so as required by US law.
He is also accused of setting up meetings between Iranian officials and a Chinese energy company to discuss oil deals, despite US sanctions on the Middle Eastern country.
According to Reuters, prosecutors did not identify the former official but said he was working as an adviser to then-president-elect Donald Trump at the time.
Reuters said the think tank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Luft is accused of pushing the adviser to support policies favourable to China, including by drafting comments in the adviser’s name that were published in a Chinese newspaper.
Luft is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, which describes itself as a Washington DC-based thinktank focused on energy, security and economic trends.
Reuters reported that Luft, 57, was arrested in February in Cyprus on US charges, but fled after being released on bail while awaiting extradition, prosecutors said.
He is not currently in US custody.
In the year ending June 2016, Kenya bought Sh7.9 billion worth of arms from China.
Military hardware that Nairobi ordered from Beijing includes tanks, armoured vehicles and spare parts, according to a report by a European arms trade monitoring agency, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).