It’s Not OK to Sell Dive Gear to Libya

In the summer of 2016, a federal agent contacted the owner of a Delray Beach dive equipment company and warned him not to proceed with his plans to export more than $100,000 worth of advanced dive gear to Libya because the sale would violate a U.S. embargo on doing certain types of business with the war-torn nation.

But prosecutors say the message was ignored, and the rebreather equipment was shipped from the company's warehouse in August of that year. European customs officials stopped the load before it could reach its destination.

After 12 hours of deliberation, a jury on October 23 convicted the company's owner, Peter Sotis, 57, and his shipping manager, Emilie Voissem, 45, on charges of smuggling and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. They each face a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines. The ruling will most likely be appealed.

A wire transfer of $40,000

According to Sotis' 2019 grand jury indictment, his company, Add Helium, received a wire transfer of $40,000 in April 2016 from what prosecutors called "Company 1," likely Ramas, LLC, of Patrick Springs, Virginia. Ramas was a liaison between Add Helium and a man named Osama Bensadik, who wanted to buy the equipment, according to the emails. In an interview with the Miami Herald in October 2017, Sotis said the deal was "in excess of $100,000." He said Add Helium sells the equipment and trains people how to use it. "These guys were well-funded and ready to buy everything under the sun," Sotis said in the interview.

But, in late June, the shipping company that Add Helium hired backed out of the deal. Company representatives sent Voissem an email saying they couldn't proceed; they risked breaking U.S. law because of an embargo against Libya as a result of the ongoing violence in the country.

According to the emails obtained by the Herald, one of Sotis' business partners at the time warned him that the rebreathers and other gear he planned to sell the Libyans likely violated the embargo because they had both civilian and potential military uses. Federal officials say Voissem emailed the "individuals" on August 2, 2016, saying they should pick up the equipment directly from Add Helium's warehouse rather than have the company arrange the shipment as originally planned. "It may be appropriate and in the best interest of time for the shipping to go through you," Voissem wrote.

Federal agent says not to send equipment to Libya

In early August, a federal agent with the Department of Commerce told both Sotis and Voissem not to send the equipment, prosecutors say. After the conversation with the agent, Sotis "instructed his employees to cease communicating with him on email regarding the rebreather shipment to Libya." On August 17, 2016, a federal agent called Sotis and Voissem about the equipment. What the agent did not know was the gear had already been picked up, which Sotis and Voissem did not divulge. Sotis told the Herald in 2017 that the Libyans planned to use the dive gear for shipwreck hunting in the Mediterranean. "If someone wants to pick something up from us and ship it overseas, it's none of our business."

The U.S. Attorney's Office said in a press release that Sotis and Voissem "lied and misled" Ramas, LLC about what the Commerce agent "had told them and about whether the rebreathers had a military use." The buyer, Osama Bensadik, was a U.S. businessman of Libyan descent and served as an ambulance driver for the resistance during the 2011 Libyan civil war that overthrew Gadhafi. His son took up arms against the government and was killed.

Relationship with Rob Stewart

Peter Sotis also made headlines in the past few years because of his involvement with Canadian conservationist and documentary filmmaker Rob Stewart, who died in a diving accident off the Florida Keys on January 31. He went missing after a deep dive off Islamorada. A team of divers found his body on the ocean floor, 220 feet down, on February 3, 2017. Stewart had hired Sotis to help train him on rebreather gear for his planned documentary on sharks, which he was filming off Islamorada at the time of his death.

Sotis was among several people named in a sprawling lawsuit filed by Stewart's estate over his death.

This story, by David Goohus, was originally published October 23, 2021, by the Miami Herald. Undercurrent takes all responsibility for editorial errors.