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A Miami gun dealer was charged Friday with supplying large quantities of military-type weapons and ammunition to a ring that sold them to left-wing rebels and right-wing paramilitary fighters in Colombia. The 13-count indictment returned by a grand jury in Miami comes on top of other charges issued earlier this year against gun store owner Joseph Ruiz and six members of an alleged weapons trafficking ring. The indictment alleges that Ruiz used his business to supply military-type weapons and ammunition to traffickers, the US Attorney's Office in Miami said. The ring then sent the weapons by sea to Venezuela, where many of them were sold to buyers acting on behalf of the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC.) Both groups are on the US list of international terrorist organizations. Ruiz was arrested in late September after authorities seized 200 weapons and more than 700,000 rounds of ammunition at a Miami warehouse. Another defendant, Rodney Sharp, remains at large. All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
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