Quoted:
I might be wrong on this but what was explained to me was that esapi and military plates were never realesed to DRMO so there should be none in the civilian market.in other words all the ones floating around were obtained by other means. Same aplys to body armor in general if it has a s/n / nsn or had one removed. I think E&E actually requiers you to take a pic of the tag as to let OSI verify that it is not stolen property. Also if you buy stolen military property even if you had no idea it was stolen you will loose that item. And good luck getting your money back from the seller.
Both SAPI and ESAPI plates are sold commercially by Paraclete. I purchased a set of ESAPIs from them prior to my last trip abroad as my Agency didn't have my size and wasn't getting any.
They ran about 900 bucks a plate and are marked ESAPI but the covering was black vice the military green. Same plate, same performance...but sold commercially.
Now, I don't know if they were sold to non LEO/Gov employees though...
Either way, I wouldn't say that ALL of the plates floating around are stolen...but a lot probably are.
Heck, I looked into selling my plates since I didn't even end up wearing them and with all the ZOMG ESAPIs are illegal!!!, you would have thought I was trying to sell launch codes for a missile or something.