U.S. Soldiers Indicted In Scheme To Smuggle, Sell Machine Guns

[Drizzt]

U.S. Soldiers Indicted In Scheme To Smuggle, Sell Machine Guns
If Convicted, They Could Face Up To 10 Years In Prison

POSTED: 7:18 am EDT April 13, 2005

PADUCAH, Ky. -- Two soldiers and another man were indicted Tuesday for allegedly smuggling machine guns out of Iraq and trying to sell them in the United States.

Army Sgt. Nigel Brown, 31; Sgt. Beau Uran, 24 and Guy Brown, 46, were indicted on federal charges of conspiring to unlawfully import machine guns and aiding and abetting the possession of a machine gun, the U.S. attorney's office said.

If convicted, they could face up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and supervised release for up to three years. The men are scheduled to be arraigned in May.

Nigel Brown and Uran were deployed to Iraq from Fort Campbell in 2003. While there, they acquired 17 Russian-made AK-47s and a Chinese assault rifle, prosecutors said.

The men allegedly placed the guns inside oxygen tanks after sawing the bottoms off and had them shipped back to Fort Campbell in a container.

They retrieved the tanks when they returned from Iraq, the indictment alleges.

Prosecutors said Nigel Brown then asked Guy Brown, a relative, to sell the guns. In May 2004, Guy Brown allegedly sold the guns to an undercover federal agent for $18,000.

Nigel Brown declined to comment when reached by telephone late Tuesday. A relative answering the phone at a listed number for Guy Brown said he was not available. There was no phone listing for Beau Uran in Clarksville.

Lt. Col. Ed Loomis, a Fort Campbell spokesman, said Nigel Brown and Uran were still with their units. He referred questions about the investigation to the U.S. attorney.

http://www.wftv.com/news/4374390/detail.html

 

[30 cal slob]

...and if we didn't have these idiotic '68 and '86 (thank you J Warren Cassidy) machine gun provisions in federal law these guys probably wouldn't have felt the need to smuggle these guns in.

 

[beerslurpy]

Word to the wise:

the black market value of a non-transferrable machine gun is not 18000 dollars

 

[jefnvk]

Word to the wiser: You got lucky and didn't get caught bringing them in. Keep them and enjoy them yourselves. When they leave your hands, is when the trouble starts.

 

[PMDW]

Nigel Brown and Uran were deployed to Iraq from Fort Campbell in 2003. While there, they acquired 17 Russian-made AK-47s and a Chinese assault rifle, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Nigel Brown then asked Guy Brown, a relative, to sell the guns. In May 2004, Guy Brown allegedly sold the guns to an undercover federal agent for $18,000.

$1K each.

Also note, they were sold to a federal agent, who probably didn't care what the price was.

 

[jobu07]

A grand still sounds steep for black market machine guns. But it's unfortunate that these gentlemen even had to go to these extremes. If these ridiculous laws weren't there...

Never should have sold them is right.

 

[Master Blaster]

Sorry I have no sympathy for these folks at all, The people they were selling these guns to would have most likely been crimminals, law abiding shooters or collectors dont buy black market machine guns, The folks who would have bought them most likely would have used them in drive by shootings or worse. That would have renewed the call for a new assault weapons ban. I'm glad the ATF caught them.

 

[Bear Gulch]

Any wager on embedded BATFEsters in Iraq seeing who'd be willing to try this? Smells of set up to me. Or one of their buddies got pinched for something and rolled. I would have though if it was a strictly service related thing CID would have handled it.

 

[buzz_knox]

It's sort of irrelevant to talk about the '68 or '86 laws. The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits such smuggling of contraband, and those soldiers voluntarily agreed to be bound by the UCMJ. If you could buy full-auto AKs at the drug store, they'd still be going down for the violations. It'd just be a strictly internal military matter, rather than having come under the jurisdiction of the feds and the military.

 

[SamlautRanger]

When soldiers do things like this it is a dis-honor to the military, fellow soldiers and America. I hope they are fully prosecuted and court martialed.

These weapons would have been sold illegally more than likely to criminal elements. Not to mention these guys are stupid. It is not like they were going to legally sell them to Class 3 dealers.

Personnally I see no need to own a fully automatic assualt rifle. Semi auto is fine. I have used AKs in the real world and have been training foreign police and troops for a long time in their use-And I always stress always go semi only. In all the conflicts I have been in, I have never seen the need or used fully auto fire in a f irefight. That is what your SAW and crew served weapons are for.

 

[Gifted]

It's sort of irrelevant to talk about the '68 or '86 laws. The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits such smuggling of contraband, and those soldiers voluntarily agreed to be bound by the UCMJ. If you could buy full-auto AKs at the drug store, they'd still be going down for the violations. It'd just be a strictly internal military matter, rather than having come under the jurisdiction of the feds and the military.

The point I think was that if MGs were legally available on the free market, the profit margin available with the smuggled guns would not make it worth smuggling them in, and so they most likely wouldn't. Why buy a gun smuggled from Iraq, and pay enough to make it worth thier while, when you can go down to the store and buy one legal for possibly half or less of what they were asking?

 

[El Tejon]

Wondered when this would start. JAG needs to do something. So much stuff coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan now.

 

[Devonai]

I want to know how it was that these two guys were smart enough to get the weapons stateside, but dumb enough to sell to an undercover agent?

Furthermore, with their military experience in Iraq, I bet they could have signed a six month contract with Blackwater for many times more than $18k.

 

[Langenator]

If they had access to oxygen tanks (or nitrogen, or oxycetalene) and the tools to cut the bottoms of and then re-weld them, my guess is that these guys were mechanics. Don't think Blackwater is hiring many of those.

 

[rick_reno]

Morons - they disgrace the brave American's serving our Nation with this crap.

 

[Joejojoba111]

Devonai, they were smart enough to do their half, but the non-military guy Brown didn't carry his end. C'est la vie.

Master Blaster

I agree whether you look at it as a crime or a business transaction there is no place for sympathy. And by definition a law-abider doesn't buy back-market firearms. However, it's not a cinch that the weapons were going to violent enterprise, but I'll give you 90% Afterall, a lot of people collected NAZI paraphanelia that should have been destroyed, not because they were NAZIs, but just because it's human to collect things.

 

[Boss Spearman]

Repeal the 1930s law also. The one banning sawed off shotguns. Stupid law.

 

[Battlespace]

In Vietnam we used to sell AK-47's to basecamp warriors for a few bucks, telling them they could take them back to the "world" when they left. It kept us in beer money.

 

[WT]

Here's something somewhat similar.


USAF Smuggles Drugs
THE NEW YORK POST

April 14, 2005 -- Two members of the Air National Guard used Air Force cargo planes to smuggle millions of dollars worth of drugs into New York, the feds said yesterday.

Captain Franklin Rodriguez, of The Bronx, and Master Sergeant John Fong, of Manhattan, were busted bringing in 290,000 ecstasy pills into their upstate Newburgh military base from Germany, said a bombshell complaint released last night by Manhattan U.S. Attorney David Kelley.

"While countless other members of the armed services are so selflessly risking and sacrificing their lives in defense of their country," Rodriguez and Fong "chose to co-opt for their own pockets and to poison our streets with dangerous drugs," Kelley said.

The complaint said the duo made their score while stopping off in Germany on a supply run from Stewart Air Force to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

They picked up the massive load of drugs in a hotel room in Frankfurt, where they crammed the tablets into their personal luggage for the trip home, the feds said.

But probers had been watching the pair, and when the duo landed at Stewart on Tuesday, investigators searched their luggage and then arrested them, officials said.

"They were both pretty upset," said Capt. Kevin Kerley of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force.

With a street value of $20 to $40 per pill, the ecstasy brought in on the one trip has a street value of $5 million to $11 million.

Fong confessed to law-enforcement agents he smuggled in ecstasy from Germany on Air Force craft on at least three prior occasions, the complaint said.

Rodriguez, 35, and Fong, 36, were ordered held without a bail.

___________________________________________

 

[2nd Amendment]

Indicted? There was a crime here? Or merely a violation of stupid regulations?

 

[Bear Gulch]

There have always been criminal organizations that use the color of the military to sell drug, smuggle etc. I would imagine that these guys had been approached before they went overseas.

 

[rock jock]

The military is better off w/o them....and so is society.

 

[Too Many Choices!?]

Bringing weapons into a Country through non approved methods.....

Yeah, no crime there! What if it was nuclear material they brought over ? How about a few grenades ?

 

[buzz_knox]

Indicted? There was a crime here? Or merely a violation of stupid regulations?

It's not an issue of regulations. It's an issue of violating the law that these soldiers specifically agreed to be bound by, namely the UCMJ. So yeah, there's a crime here, as well as a breach of military discipline. Whether the feds got them or not, they'd be doing time in Leavenworth just through the court-martial they richly earned.

 

[Blackburn]

What were they thinking?

1) The proper way to move Select-Fire AKs is RECEIVER HARVESTING.

2) When you are selling the full gun, whether you built it up from the reciever and a parts kit like you would if you have a brain, or if it's one you smuggled intact (moron) going rate is 300 bucks in the southeastern US. 2K canadian in canada, and most of the ones hitting canada are straight from Iraq.

3) You do not ask a 'relative' to sell them. One goes through the proper channels.

4) You do not sell them in bulk. If you do, you give a discount and discounts are bad for business.

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