It sounds like a sequel to "The Italian Job": a band of ex-CIA operatives sets up a consulting firm to investigate corporate fraud -- then gets ripped off in a con job by one of their own.

But the facts surrounding a suit filed in D.C. Superior Court this week are all too true.

The partners of TD International, led by a former CIA agent expelled from France in a 1995 spy scandal, have filed suit against a partner who they say embezzled over a million dollars out of them through a false billing scam.

"Former congressman Curt Weldon is helping broker deals between Russian and Ukranian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments as part of his new job with a private American defense consulting firm," says Weinberger, author of A Nuclear Family Vacation: Travels in the World of Atomic Weaponry.

Weldon did not respond to e-mails and phone requests to be interviewed or comment for this article. But in a 2006 interview, before the FBI probe was public, Weldon spoke enthusiastically about setting up a "front company" to work with the Russian arms agency, Rosoboronexport. Weldon hoped this company could sell weapons to the Middle East, and other regions, particularly to countries where the U.S. has strained relations. He claimed the director of Rosoboronexport approached him to work with "an American company that would act as a front for weapons these nations want to buy."