The project had been set up as a fake $15 million deal to arm the presidential guard of the Omar Bongo regime in the West African nation of Gabon. It had been created by the American Department of Justice (DoJ) and run by the FBI (unbeknown to Bongo). They designed it to be a deadly weapon in their arsenal against corruption but the biggest investigation of its type in DoJ-FBI history brought only humiliation, controversy and complete legal defeat.
In February this year the DoJ asked a judge to dismiss all charges made against him with prejudice, which means they can never be revisited. The same was true of his 21 co-accused. In the end, nobody ensnared by the fictitious Gabon deal was convicted.