04 June 2024 , 09:52
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An ex-US soldier has been extradited from Ukraine after he allegedly went on an “international crime spree,” according to prosecutors.
In a U.S. Department of Justice news release, authorities noted that 34-year-old Craig Austin Lang has faced federal indictments in Florida, North Carolina and Arizona since 2019. The Federal Bureau of Investigation brought Lang from Ukraine to the United States after the European Court of Human Rights rejected his claim challenging extradition, the release said.
Lang, a US citizen from Surprise, Arizona, pleaded not guilty in Florida on Monday, according to court documents. He faces a whole host of charges in three cases, including using a gun during a deadly violent crime in Florida, and violating the Neutrality Act and conspiring to kill people in a foreign country for his plans in Venezuela, a country with whom the US is at peace, the indictment notes.
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Austin Lang has faced federal indictments in Florida, North Carolina and Arizona since 2019 (Facebook)Several months after the alleged Florida killings, Lang traded a military smoke grenade, guns and cash to use someone’s identity to apply for a U.S. passport in North Carolina, another indictment claims. In Arizona, he is charged with showing a U.S. passport to Mexican authorities in September 2018 to try to get a Mexican visa in violation of the passport’s restrictions.
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“Lang’s alleged conduct is shocking in its scope and its callous disregard for human life,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Meanwhile, several others were indicted alongside Lang in the Florida and North Carolina cases and have already been convicted or pleaded guilty.
The killings in Florida unfolded in April 2018, the year after Lang and another former U.S. Army soldier, Alex Jared Zwiefelhofer, had met in Ukraine, where they claimed to be part of a volunteer battalion fighting Russian separatists, authorities said. The two were detained in Kenya while trying to enter South Sudan in 2017 and were eventually deported to the U.S., according to an FBI affidavit.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation brought Lang from Ukraine to the United States after the European Court of Human Rights rejected his claim (Getty Images)In Florida, a couple in their 50s from Brooksville planned to buy guns that Lang and Zwiefelhofer had listed for sale online, but the two men allegedly killed the couple to steal the $3,000 (£2,350) charged for the guns, authorities said. In Facebook Messenger conversations that had begun the month before, Lang and Zwiefelhofer discussed travelling to Florida, buying body armour, committing robberies, stealing boats, escaping to South America or Ukraine, and smuggling guns and ammunition, the FBI affidavit says.
Federal authorities said they found records of Lang leaving Mexico City for Bogota, Colombia, in September 2018, then departing Colombia for Madrid, Spain, that November, with no record of Lang reentering the U.S. after leaving Mexico. The FBI agent’s affidavit, filed in August 2019, said social media posts showed Lang was in Ukraine at that time.
A jury convicted Zwiefelhofer in March on charges in the Florida case, including the use of a gun during a deadly violent crime and others. He is awaiting his sentencing.