Vamvakias and Gogel were apprehended in Liberia, where they had traveled to commit the murders. Filter and Soborski were arrested in Estonia, where they had gone to “provide other services” to the DEA informants posing as Colombians, Bharara said at a press conference on Friday.
Bharara declined to identify the DEA agent and informant targeted for murder as part of the sting operation.
The indictment charges that Hunter and his team acted as security for cocaine shipments originating in Asia and bound for the U.S.
In late 2012, according to the indictment, Hunter “collected resumes via email for prospective members of the security team.”
Earlier this year, Hunter and his team allegedly traveled to an unnamed Asian country to discuss the drug trafficking security work with the two informants they believed to be part of the cartel.
Hunter, Vamvakias and Gogel were recorded discussing plans to commit the contract killings in Liberia, authorities said.
Hunter told the DEA informants that “he himself had previously done ‘bonus jobs'” – code for contract killings, and that his team “wanted to do as much ‘bonus work’ as possible,” according to the indictment.
Bharara said that since leaving the U.S. military in 2004, Hunter “has allegedly worked as a contract killer, arranging successfully for the murder of numerous people.”
Bharara declined to reveal who Hunter is believed to have murdered, but said he “leapt at the chance to serve the purported drug traffickers” as a hired killer.
“Thanks to the determined, skillful and intrepid efforts of the DEA’s Special Operations Division, an international hit team has been neutralized by agents working on four continents.”