Arms trafficking

Where do criminals really get their guns?

Mass shootings all too routinely hit the headlines across the United States. But what rarely makes a blip on the news cycle are the individual acts of gun violence that permeate the social fabric – with almost 500,000 violent crimes committed with a gun annually, according to the National Institute of Justice.

On average, just under 40,000 people each year die across the country in a gun-related death. So, where do criminals typically buy their guns? And do most criminals seek out their weapons of choice through illicit means?

“The majority of firearms used in criminal activity are obtained illegally,” said David Chianese, a correspondent at Law Enforcement Today, published author and former NYPD detective. “Stricter or additional gun laws do not reduce gun violence.”

A 2019 survey conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that some 43 percent of criminals had bought their firearms on the black market, 6 percent acquired them via theft, and 10 percent made a retail purchase – 0.8 percent purchased a weapon from a gun show.

Arms trafficking

The Coveted, Overpriced Missile at the Heart of Trump’s Ukraine Scandal

...Small arms may seem easier to traffic, but the uber-desirable Javelins end up in enemy hands, too. In 2003, a GAO report found that the U.S. Army had lost track of 36 Javelin launch units following the invasion of Iraq. While the Pentagon and State Department both denied sending any anti-tank weapons to regional forces fighting ISIS in Syria, The Washington Post in February 2016 identified a Javelin in the hands of Kurdish YPG forces at work in northern Syria. A year later, footage from television station Al-Mawsleya appeared to show a Javelin missile and launcher among a cache of weapons recovered from an ISIS weapons cache just outside the Iraqi city of Tal Afar; as recently as this July, The New York Times reported that the Libyan government had recovered a quartet of Javelin missiles, first sold to France, from an encampment belonging to rebels seeking to overthrow the UN-recognized central government. The Javelin isn’t a tool of democracy: It’s a highly portable, highly destructive weapon that serves no ideology in particular.

Arms trafficking

‘Capable of shooting down aircraft’: Spanish police seize €10mn worth of black market weapons

Spanish authorities say that among the 10-12,000 weapons seized earlier this week are some capable of bringing down aircraft. The haul comprised illegally reactivated decommissioned weapons, which have been used by terrorists in Europe.

Police arrested four men and woman – all Spanish nationals – who had been operating a sophisticated trafficking network in several provinces across the country under the front of a historical weapons workshop that bought supposedly decorative firearms. The purchased weapons were then restored and sold on the black market throughout Europe.

Among the weapons seized were vintage Smith & Wesson revolvers, CETME, Bergmann, and Beretta rifles, and even heavier anti-aircraft machine guns, with the total value of the haul estimated at approximately €10 million on the black market.

Arms trafficking

Pentagon Admits "Lapses In Accountability" Led To Loss Of Hundreds Of Thousands Of US Guns (Trunc)

Back in April 2016, the New York Times published an article highlighting a number of Facebook pages in the Middle East being used to sell U.S. military equipment.
A terrorist hoping to buy an antiaircraft weapon in recent years needed to look no further than Facebook, which has been hosting sprawling online arms bazaars, offering weapons ranging from handguns and grenades to heavy machine guns and guided missiles.
The Facebook posts suggest evidence of large-scale efforts to sell military weapons coveted by terrorists and militants. The weapons include many distributed by the United States to security forces and their proxies in the Middle East. These online bazaars, which violate Facebook’s recent ban on the private sales of weapons, have been appearing in regions where the Islamic State has its strongest presence.
Many of the Facebook pages have subsequently been shut down, as selling stolen U.S. military equipment to terrorist organizations technically violates Facebook's user policies. But the remnants remain...like the Facebook post below showing a row of kids shooting increasingly lower caliber weapons culminating with a young man shooting a sling-shot...adorable!

Arms trafficking

International arms trafficking racket unearthed, two arrested in Delhi

An international arms trafficking racket was unearthed on Thursday with arrested to two people from the national capital after brief a exchange of firing near Delhi’s Indraprastha Park. The arms were supplied from Pakistan by terror organizations in India through porous border between Nepal and India and thereafter sold at different parts of the country to terrorists as well as gangsters.

The anti-terror unit of Delhi police -- Special Cell -- has recovered a consignment of ten sophisticated foreign made pistols. After a brief shootout, police arrested two gun runners who smuggled sophisticated foreign made arms from Pakistan through Nepal, and recovered 10 pistols and 157 live cartridges.

Arms trafficking

UK gang bought guns from same shop as Charlie Hebdo terrorists

A British crime gang bought the largest haul of automatic weapons ever detected by UK police from the same source in eastern Europe as terrorists behind the Paris attacks of January 2015, it can be revealed.

The 22 Kalashnikov-style assault rifles and nine machine guns were described by police from the National Crime Agency as “mass casualty weapons”. They were intercepted in an operation led by the NCA after being smuggled from eastern Europe to France and across the Channel in a motor boat which docked in Kent last August.

On Thursday, Harry Shilling, 25 and Michael Defraine, 30, two leading members of the organised crime gang based in Kent, were convicted of smuggling the firearms and conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life after a trial at the Old Bailey in London. Three other members of the group pleaded guilty to their part in the plot. All five face possible life imprisonment when they are sentenced on 13 May.