The feds charged a band of NY arms merchants yesterday in a chilling million-dollar plot to smuggle thousands of Russian weapons into the United States — including shoulder-fired missiles capable of shooting down airliners.

The 17 arrests followed a two-year-long sting in which a patriotic FBI informant who is a South African munitions expert posed as an arms buyer with ties to al Qaeda.

"Are you interested in buying weapons?" the arms sellers asked, claiming they had ties to the Russian mob and rogue members of the Russian military.

"Yes," the informant replied.

"Are your friends dark-skinned?" the men asked, referring to radical Muslims.

"Yes," the informant replied again.

The sellers offered to supply 2,000 (weapons) for at least $2 million.

A law-enforcement official described the informant as a "pure hero" who only wanted to do the right thing for his adoptive country.

"He risked his life every day," the official said.

As the months passed, the men sold eight machine guns and assault weapons to the informant.

They also schemed to smuggle Russian weapons into the country, including rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Strela SA-7b surface-to-air shoulder-launched missiles.

According to Jane's, the respected defense authority, the missiles were used in the Vietnam and Arab-Israeli wars, resulting in the downing of dozens of aircraft.

Their simplicity "has also resulted in the widespread distribution of the weapon to various guerrilla and terrorist groups throughout the world," Jane's said.

The ringleaders, Artur Solomonyan, 26, an Armenian who lives in Brooklyn, and Christiaan Dewet Spies, 33, a South African, were busted in a Battery Park City hotel as they prepared to leave for Eastern Europe to carry out the shipment of the arms, authorities said.
 

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