Brügger & Thomet

Controversies and criticism

On August 22, 2006, Heinrich Thomet was placed on the State Department’s watch list of potential arms traffickers. Thomet was closely associated with AEY, an arms procurement firm run by Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz. The two later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States in 2011. As a well-established arms broker Heinrich Thomet maintained connections with Albanian arms traffickers, paying them kickbacks for each US military contract that AEY fulfilled. The decades-old ammunition AEY sourced in Albania was Chinese, something that was in violation of US embargo rules established after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Between 2008 and 2009, Heinrich Thomet was involved in importation of MAG58 parts, originating from sanctioned Zimbabwe Defence Industries into the United States through Montenegro, while U.S. laws prohibit transactions with individuals or entities of Zimbabwe under sanctions.

The Brügger & Thomet APR (licensed Ukrainian production) was used by Ukrainian security forces against the Ukrainian people during the Euromaidan demonstrations. Evidence of their use by the Yanukovych regime's snipers is documented in photos and video recordings. In 2009, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) approved Brügger & Thomet's "know-how transfer for the manufacture of small arms to a Ukrainian company," a SECO spokeswoman confirmed to the Swiss SonntagsZeitung. In addition, individual parts for the manufacture of around 30 to 50 sniper rifles were also shipped from Thun to Ukraine. These rifles were purchased to provide protection during the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship. In an interview of Ukraine expert Ievgen Vorobiov conducted by SonntagsZeitung, Vorobiov concludes that Viktor Yanukovych had used Euro 2012 in a targeted manner to upgrade the security forces. Karl Brügger, managing director of Brügger & Thomet quote: "We can assure you that all exports of weapon parts or licenses have been approved by the Seco." Brügger did not want to comment on the use of their weapons.

The French police used the GL06 launcher during the 2018/2019 Yellow vests movement and various demonstrators received serious injuries. In a statement on B&T website, the company denied its culpability in the injuries, citing that wrong type of ammo by unknown company could "increase the risk of injury considerably and makes the thrower less accurate".