Facts: - birth name: - death date: 5 october 2011 - birth date: 6 february 1929 - death place: hialeah , florida - birth place: iskanderun , french mandate syria Based on these bullet points, write a short biography describing the life of sarkis soghanalian .
sarkis garabet soghanalian -lrb- ; february 6 , 1929 -- october 5 , 2011 -rrb- , nicknamed merchant of death , was an international private arms dealer who gained fame for being the '' cold war 's largest arms merchant '' and the lead seller of firearms and weaponry to the former government of iraq under saddam hussein during the 1980s .soghanalian , then a permanent resident living in virginia gardens , florida , was hired on behalf of the central intelligence agency to sell arms to help iraq in the midst of the iran -- iraq war .with the encouragement of the reagan administration and the backing of american intelligence agencies , he oversaw the transaction of several significant arms deals , including the sale of french-built artillery valued at $ 1.4 billion .besides iraq , he also sold weapons to groups such as the polisario forces in mauritania , the phalange militia during the lebanese civil war , to latin american countries such as nicaragua , ecuador , and to argentina during the falklands war .he extended his services to other regions of the world , including africa .prior to the beginning of the persian gulf war , soghanalian appeared in several television interviews , explaining in detail the work he had done in iraq , along with naming several top american government officials who were involved in the arms transactions .with this , the justice department charged soghanalian for '' conspiracy of shipping unauthorized weapons '' to iraq where he was found guilty and sentenced to jail .he was released several years later when he helped the clinton administration unsuccessfully break up a counterfeiting ring in lebanon .he moved his office from the united states and opened up operations in france and jordan .in 2001 , he was arrested once more by the us government on bank fraud charges but was released a year later after he revealed the weapons transactions deals were taking place between the cia and peru -lrb- which arguably resulted in the collapse of the alberto fujimori government -rrb- .