Federal prosecutors in the Africa-scam case are alleging that the nearly two dozen arms-dealer defendants were part of a single conspiracy, which if accepted would make the case a lot easier to press. Notes FCPA Blog:

But will the single-conspiracy approach set up the entrapment defense? Reuters quoted two defense attorneys as saying "they believed their clients barely knew each other beyond perhaps an occasional handshake when their paths happened to cross in the industry." That suggests some defendants might argue they were a group of strangers recruited into an illegal conspiracy promoted and run entirely by the feds and their mole.