Soldiers sentenced for smuggling arms

[Drizzt]

Soldiers sentenced for smuggling arms

Associated Press

PADUCAH, Kentucky — Two soldiers and an uncle of one of them were sentenced to between six months and five years in prison on federal charges of conspiring to import machine guns from Iraq and aiding and abetting the possession of a machine gun, federal prosecutors said.

Sgt. Nigel Brown, 31, and Sgt. Beau Uran, 25, were arrested after Brown’s uncle, Guy Anthony Brown, sold to an undercover federal agent machine guns the soldiers smuggled back from Iraq. The weapons had been hidden in the re-welded bases of oxygen tanks and shipped back to Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

Guy Anthony Brown on Monday was sentenced to five years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release.

His nephew was sentenced to 2½ years in prison and two years supervised release. Uran, who authorities say cooperated in the investigation, was sentenced to six months in prison, followed by two years supervised release and six months home detention, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Authorities the two soldiers sent back to the United States 17 Russian-made AK-47s and a Chinese copy of the assault rifle.

 

[El Tejon]

Remember, absolutely no weapons are being smuggled back from Iraq. .gov is firmly in control. Move along, nothing to see here.

 

[geekWithA.45]

Lessons learned:

9/10 people seeking to buy fully automatic arms not on the registry are ATFE agents.

 

[HankB]

Lessons learned: 9/10 people seeking to buy fully automatic arms not on the registry are ATFE agents.

As are the majority of "militia" members who joined up since the OKC bombing.

Sort of makes you wonder . . . with all the setups and "stings" going on, do the BATmen, FBI, and other LEOs ever "sting" each other?

And would we hear about it if they did?

 

[Jackthelad]

Was Agent Shmuckatelli the first of the sting operation to notice Da Switch?

 

[1 old 0311]

Oxygen tanks? Hell I understand AK's were broken down and put in 6x6 tires after Vietnam.

Kevin

 

[Kharn]

Sort of makes you wonder . . . with all the setups and "stings" going on, do the BATmen, FBI, and other LEOs ever "sting" each other?

And would we hear about it if they did?

I heard that supposedly 2/3rds of those in the white supremacist movement at one time were law enforcement agents from various departments/groups under cover. Imagine the Reno 911 head shop skit, thats probably what a few of thier busts looked like.

Kharn

 

[Johnny_Yuma]

Ha ha ha, <nervous, sheepish grins>

Sort of makes you wonder . . . with all the setups and "stings" going on, do the BATmen, FBI, and other LEOs ever "sting" each other?

Happens periodically . You can bet someone will remember it and bring it up at your retirement party in front of your wife and kids. Usually we end up busting each others controlled informants. Occassionally, we end up targeting other agencies' UCs. I once had an informant bring me a couple of money launderers on a silver platter. They had cleaned up some illicit earnings for a "business associate" of his and were looking for referrals. I got initial approval to use the informant as a "CI" with a look toward a full-blown UC operation with our agency's UC agents. The CI made a couple of monitored phone calls to his buddy, who hooked him up with the target money launderers. The CI did his thing and set up a meet between the targets and the UC agents. About 10 minutes after THAT monitored call a buddy of mine with another agency called up wanting to know if we wanted to work with them on a sting they were setting up. Their UCs had just set up a meet in a monitored phone call with some guys wanting to get their ill-gotten goods laundered. I realized what was happening and pretty much repeated the UC conversation to him verbatim. "Oh, so, um, that was you guys, huh?"

There was a much-publicized-within-LE-circles "buy-bust/sell-bust" some years back when the Bureau's snitch sold a bunch of dope to DEA's snitch and both cover teams jumped out simultaneously for the take-down.

When you've got a bunch of agencies with overlapping jurisdiction and UC agents pretending to be bad guys, sometimes you catch each other.

 

[Sistema1927]

And to think that we pay taxes to support all of that.

 

[444]

Not willingly.

 

[Standing Wolf]

When you've got a bunch of agencies with overlapping jurisdiction and UC agents pretending to be bad guys, sometimes you catch each other.

Pity you folks are too busy to mind the borders.

 

[Johnny_Yuma]

It's a long way

Pity you folks are too busy to mind the borders.

It's a long way from North Carolina. The commute would kill me.

You'll find most of the rank and file infurriated about the border situation. My compatriots over in BCBP (formerly the Border Patrol) get sick of their management's idiotic ideas for "migrant rescue teams" and the like. When Border Patrol management starts babbling about being "service-oriented" you know things are seriously out of hand.

The border issue affects just about every type of LE agency out there. My agency is currently overwhelmed with entitlement fraud cases and identity-theft cases arising from, yep, illegal immigrants. IRS, HHS, SSA, HUD, ICE, DEA, FBI, and every other agency in the alphabet soup is facing an onslaught of fraud from illegal immigration. Funny thing is it has been going on for years. Most agencies used to really tout their anti-fraud programs that were disproportionately impacted by illegals. For the last two years the immigration issue has come to a head, thanks to awareness raised by the Minutemen and other groups. Suddenly, my agency's management doesn't mention the illegal alien problem anymore. You would think this would be a prime time for LE agencies to shout about it . Maybe someone up the food chain doesn't like the attention.