Posted on 09/27/2022 8:07:56 AM PDT by Chode
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Federal authorities are trying to figure out how at least a dozen fully-automatic M16s ended up among military surplus equipment sold to a Houston couple.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) executed a search warrant in a Richmond-area storage facility on Monday afternoon. However, that only came after the couple voluntarily notified authorities of their highly-unusual find.
Last week, the couple, who run a side hustle of buying surplus lots, dividing up the products, and reselling them on eBay, received delivery of 108 storage cases sold by a government surplus website. Over the weekend, a friend helped the couple stack and store the cases. As a thank you, they gave one of the cases to the friend.
When that friend opened the case, he realized it was not empty. Inside were 12 fully-automatic M-16s, all of them still with various tags designating the military branch and name of service members who handled the weapons.
"We just purchased these cases. We never expected anything in there," said the husband, who did not want to be identified. "Supposedly, the sender should check every single box to make sure there's nothing dangerous or anything."
"It's just a case, everybody can buy it online," the wife said.
Unsure of what to do, the couple reported the M-16s to authorities. Within hours, ATF and FBI agents seized the one open box with the 12 weapons. Shortly thereafter, the ATF obtained a search warrant for the couple's storage unit. They spent most of Monday on location, going through the boxes.
ABC13 was the only news outlet on scene. We observed agents opening, closing, and stacking multiple gun cases.
"It's incredible. It's surreal," said Greg Fremin, a one-time Houston police captain and Marine.
ABC13 reached out to Fremin, who is now a faculty member at Sam Houston State University, about how dangerous it is to have random military equipment floating around.
"It's unbelievable to think military-grade weapons would be shipped in containers across state lines. It's pretty shocking," Fremin said. "One of the strictest things we have in the military is weapons accountability. So these weapons are missing somewhere from a U.S. armory, and somebody doesn't know it. That's the scary thing about that for the U.S. military right now."
He continued, "For these boxes to have M16s in them and be shipped to a public destination, not only is it shocking it's a federal crime."
Exactly who's legally responsible for the gross mistake is uncertain. ABC13 contacted the online website that sold the gun cases. The company has since pulled all the other cases that were also for sale offline as it conducts an internal investigation. A representative from the company told ABC13 that it directly contracts with the Department of Defense to sell surplus equipment, which would not include any weapons.
The ATF confirms it's investigating along with the FBI but will not say how many weapons were recovered. ABC13 can confirm the number is at least a dozen, but unknown how many other boxes also contained M16s.
"We are good citizens" the wife said, adding she's now reluctant to buy military surplus equipment and fearful to run afoul of the law.
😆
“who run a side hustle of buying surplus lots”.
Really,no bias there.🙄
Bury them,then when the 💩 hits the fan dig em up and trade them.🤔
none
I needed 4 or 5 good cases. I bought a pallet with 12 cases (the smallest lot the local military base had). This was years ago and it cost me $300 or so. The really good sturdy plastic cases (Hardee brand or something, like Pelican).
I ended up selling the ones I didn’t need for $50 each.
Yup! Just like the hot and aggressive school teachers, you missed out on this one, too! :-)
Now that is a lousy idea. Here’s why.
A US gold coin is easily “authenticated”. A few of the coins in the hoard are worth about $1 million dollars each, to collectors. All of them worth far more than the melt value. The gold content of a $20 gold piece is about $1600 at today’s spot price, or near enough.
But if someone actually were to melt one down, it isn’t worth near $1600 any longer. It’s just a blob of unrecognizable gold, and without assay a dealer can’t be sure of the purity. At least that’s what they’ll claim anyway.
They’d probably offer about 75% of the actual value, maybe even less. Not sure exactly, but most definitely a big discount.
So a coin worth $1 million is turned into maybe $1000 bucks? Stupid!
The coins weren't worth $1, $1k, or $1m to those that found them once they had to turn them over. They were worth $0.
As the article said, the “Saddle Ridge Hoard” had a gold value of $2.5 million and $10 million of numismatic value to the government.
As for a "blob" of unrecognizable gold, you must never have dealt with gold "eggs" that are common in foreign countries but are also traded amongst U.S. gold merchants. They pay well for untraceable gold.
If they had been confiscated I suppose you might have a point. Except, the weren’t. The gubbmint said “Nope, not ours”.
Nobody pays well for a blob of metal that might (or might not) be gold. That isn’t how this works. That isn’t how any of this works.
They don’t want “untraceable” gold. They want recognizable gold of known quantity, purity, and fineness. Anything else is discounted heavily.
While I can agree it would be “nice” to find a large buried treasure and keep silent, in practice it is extremely difficult to pull off.
I saw those used a lot. They have the little air pressure release button them? Every day, every commander sends a report up the chain of command on readiness levels, deployability, how many trucks, ships, planes, etc are at 100%.
Aircraft get a lot of attention in particular. If an aircraft is broken, or “Red X’d”, there are various acceptable answers as to why it is unflyable, and when it is estimated to be back to flying status. As I recall it was something called “AOG” for “Aircraft On Ground” - due to parts unavailability - that got their attention at the puzzle palace. Some hydraulic pump or something. Nobody has one. Then, somebody somewhere would find one, deep at a Army Depot.
We’d get a 75 pound shipping container FEDEX overnight from Tobyhanna to Hawaii, stuff like that. Wonder what that cost? LOL
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.