On August 22, 2006, Heinrich Thomet was placed on the
State Department’s watch list of potential
arms traffickers. Thomet was closely associated with AEY, an arms procurement firm run by
Efraim Diveroli and
David Packouz. The two later pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to defraud the United States in 2011. As a well-established arms broker Heinrich Thomet maintained connections with Albanian arms traffickers, paying them kickbacks for each US military contract that AEY fulfilled. The decades-old ammunition AEY sourced in Albania was Chinese, something that was in violation of US embargo rules established after the
1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Between 2008 and 2009, Heinrich Thomet was involved in importation of
MAG58 parts, originating from sanctioned
Zimbabwe Defence Industries into the
United States through
Montenegro, while U.S. laws prohibit transactions with individuals or entities of Zimbabwe under sanctions. The
Brügger & Thomet APR (licensed Ukrainian production) was used by Ukrainian security forces against the Ukrainian people during the
Euromaidan demonstrations. Evidence of their use by the
Yanukovych regime's snipers is documented in photos and video recordings. In 2009, the Swiss
State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) approved Brügger & Thomet's "know-how transfer for the manufacture of small arms to a Ukrainian company," a SECO spokeswoman confirmed to the Swiss
SonntagsZeitung. In addition, individual parts for the manufacture of around 30 to 50 sniper rifles were also shipped from Thun to Ukraine. These rifles that were purchased to provide protection during the
2012 UEFA European Football Championship. In an interview of Ukraine expert Ievgen Vorobiov conducted by
SonntagsZeitung, Vorobiov concludes that
Viktor Yanukovych had used Euro 2012 in a targeted manner to upgrade the security forces. In a statement on B&T website, the company denied its culpability in the injuries, citing that wrong type of ammo by unknown company could "increase the risk of injury considerably and makes the thrower less accurate". ==List of firearms produced by B&T==