Don't forget that it they're wearing the wrong color bandanas, that they wouldn't make it past PCH before the local homies capped them! ;^)
Perhaps they are trying to supply automatic weapons to the gangs, to stir the pot domestically. The PC crowd would wring their hands and call the violence and riots "a perfectly understandable reaction to (fill in the blank)"
Didn't a bunch of AK's filter into the barrio from the COSCO (Chinese Overseas Shipping Co.) a few years back?