Former Marine pleads guilty to weapons smuggling

Associated Press
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — A former Marine who's an ex-deputy sheriff has pleaded guilty in federal court in Chattanooga to smuggling firearms out of Iraq while he was deployed.


The U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release that Matthew Pickett, of Cleveland, entered his plea in court Thursday. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.


Prosecutors said Pickett was deployed to Iraq in 2004 and confiscated dozens of weapons from Iraqis. Investigators said he and others in his unit smuggled two AK-47 assault rifles and grenades back to the United States by hiding them in a vehicle's fuel tank.


Pickett, who was based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., returned home to Tennessee where he was employed as a deputy with the Bradley County Sheriff's Department. According to prosecutors, Pickett sold one of the rifles to another person in Tennessee this summer.

Dumbass!!!!

ETA: If your going to smuggle something out a souvenir, keep your mouth shut.

Agreed.



He shouldnt have sold it!



 

That isn't going to buff out.

WOWOWOW, he smuged grenades in fuel tanks!!!

AWSOME

Gold plated toilets and door knobs and this retard goes and smuggles explosives

Impressive sounding set up...

WTF is with Chattanooga and the amount of stupidity there lately???

Tennessee isn't Mexico...

If they let you take bring-backs these days, you would have an official channel, and wouldn't have idiots smuggling grenades in gas tanks.

It's chattanooga man.  I hear banjos just saying it.

actually, it's not as bad as a lot of places I have been...
wifey and her whole family are from there so I have spent a good deal of time in Chatta....
although there has been an inordinate amout of weird news come outta there recently...

Doofus.

It's not hard getting stuff back from the middle east. Failure of opsec is what got him on trouble.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

I think thats bullshit

Too bad our guys can't have bringback weapons anymore

they can if they're antiques-from what I hear the procedure is a bitch though.

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 16, 2006; Page C01

The gang that carried out a series of commando-style bank robberies in the Washington area two years ago used fully automatic assault rifles that were smuggled from the battlefields of Iraq by a soldier in the U.S. Army Reserve, according to investigators.

An investigation by the FBI and local police is centering on several AK-47s the notorious robbers used in some of their heists. In Iraq, such weapons are plentiful and cheap. For the robbery gang, they were key to their strategy: using overwhelming firepower and body armor to frighten and intimidate bank employees and customers –– and ward off police.



In the aftermath of a 2004 bank robbery in Northwest, an unidentified member of the gang carries an AK-47. (Wttg Fox 5 News)

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New details about the guns have emerged from interviews with law enforcement officials and court records. The arrests and convictions of eight people in the robberies, including two who became government witnesses, led to the spin-off criminal investigation into how the rifles made their way from Iraq to Washington. No one has been arrested in the weapons case.

Authorities said the weapons were part of a small cache purchased for $5,000 from a gang member's friend, who had recently come back from serving in Iraq. The soldier was a member of a military police battalion based at Fort Meade, authorities said.

Law enforcement officials expressed concern that more high-powered battle weapons could end up being used in crimes against U.S. citizens and police. They cited the number, availability and low cost of weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan –– and the profits to be made here at home.

In March 2004, two soldiers from Fort Campbell, Ky., smuggled back 18 machine guns from Iraq and tried to sell them on the street for $1,000 each. They hid the weapons by sawing off the bottoms of oxygen tanks and putting the guns inside, prosecutors said. They then welded back the bottoms and put the tanks in a shipping case that was headed to the United States. They were caught when the "buyer" turned out to be an undercover federal agent. The soldiers later pleaded guilty to federal charges and were sentenced to prison terms.

But a law enforcement official familiar with the bank robbers' case said that winning prosecutions is not easy. Units send their equipment back to the U.S. with little screening, the law enforcement official said. Even if weapons are discovered, tying them to a specific individual is difficult, the official added. Like others, he spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe could lead to charges.

"How do you prove it? You can prove the guys were over there, you can prove the guns are not local," the official said. But tracing exactly who did what and when is a challenge, the official said –– and that is what authorities are trying to do in the bank robbers' case.

For the bank robbers, who wore body armor with ceramic plates that would repel rifle fire, getting the machine guns gave them firepower rarely associated with holdups. Assault-type weapons can be purchased legally in the United States, but only in a semiautomatic version, meaning one squeeze of the trigger fires one round. A fully automatic assault rifle, which can fire continuously when the trigger is held down, is considered a machine gun and is restricted under federal law.

The Washington Post is not identifying the alleged seller because no charges have been filed against him. Military records show he was attached as a clerk with an Army Reserve military police unit based at Fort Meade. His unit, the 400th Military Police Battalion, was in Iraq from February 2003 to February 2004, according to the Army Reserve.

Over the course of several months in 2004, the robbers struck six banks in the District and Maryland, working in swift precision in crimes that netted about $361,000. They opened fire inside three banks and fired at a Prince George's County police officer who tried to stop their getaway. No one was seriously hurt, but while the robbers were on the run, authorities repeatedly warned the public of the potential for deadly violence.

Kate Collins, a police officer from Prince George's, can attest to that. On May 10, 2004, she pursued the getaway van shortly after the gang robbed a Chevy Chase Bank branch on St. Barnabus Road in Temple Hills. The robbers began firing their machine guns as they sped away, shattering the van's rear window with a staccato burst in the officer's direction.



Probe: Robbers Used Weapons Smuggled From Iraq by Soldier
"I felt my car shake," she said.

Collins was alone in her cruiser, armed with a 9mm handgun. It wasn't a fair fight. Later, she said, police counted47 shots fired at her –– including slugs that lodged in her gas tank and in a seat eight inches away.



In the aftermath of a 2004 bank robbery in Northwest, an unidentified member of the gang carries an AK-47. (Wttg Fox 5 News)

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"I had a BB gun compared to them," she said.

The bank robbery gang was always looking to increase its arsenal, according to testimony during the trial of six of the members last year. During that trial, at the federal courthouse in Washington, a firearms expert testified that the rifles were made in Saudi Arabia and Romania.

The gang's acquisition of the weapons was detailed in testimony by two other gang members who pleaded guilty and became prosecution witnesses: Omar Holmes and Noureddine Chtaini.

In the spring of 2004, Holmes told the jury, he heard through the neighborhood grapevine that some heavy-duty weapons were available for the right price. A meeting was set up in an industrial park behind a car wash near Kenilworth Avenue in Prince George's. Several gang members, including Holmes and Chtaini, showed up in a stolen BMW, Holmes testified.

They waited. They smoked marijuana. They waited some more.

Finally, a white Crown Victoria pulled up in the deserted industrial park. Holmes recognized the driver as an old school friend.

"I didn't know he was the guy, but when I found out it was him I talked to him for a little while," Holmes testified. "He told me he was in the Army and he went to Iraq and all that type stuff."

They walked around to the back of the car and pulled an Army backpack out of the trunk. Inside were five assault weapons: four AK-47s and a World War II-style submachine gun with a banana clip, Holmes testified. One of the AK-47s was chrome-plated; another came with a bayonet. Others had wooden handles, he said.

Chtaini testified that the gang test-fired three of the weapons in the parking lot that night. Police said they later found dozens of shell casings at the site.

"We didn't test-fire the chrome one because the other three were fully automatic and that's what –– you know, that's what we were looking for," Holmes testified.

Holmes was sentenced to 51 months in prison for various crimes tied to the gang, and Chtaini is serving a 14-year term.

Soldiers historically have brought back souvenirs of faraway battles. Gary D. Solis, a former Marine Corps judge who teaches military law, said that as a company commander in Vietnam, he knew of a fellow officer who mailed a gun home to the U.S. piece by piece.

"What is disturbing is not just the onesies and twosies, but the guys who do it for commercial purposes or do it on a scale that is dangerous," Solis said.

IMO, you oughtta be able to bring back AKs legally if you want to. But I don't make the rules, so if you do that, don't get caught. And sure as hell don't go around shopping for buyers, dumbass.

At the very least, let them saw cut the receiver and bring it back as a parts kit and rebuild it back in the states on a commercial receiver.



 

i think at the very least.... if its a weapon you can legally buy here, sks, pistol, svd, sniper rifle, bolt action,  etc, then you should be able to bring it back as a war trophy.... it has always been allowed as far as i know up until iraq........ hell they were not even allowing us to bring back iraqi bayonets, or helmets.

Why smuggle them in from Iraq when you can buy them at a gun show without a background check ?

No war trophies = bullshit. If you're gonna ask your men to put their lives on the line and for not that much pay, at least have the common courtesy to let them bring home some souvenirs.

Is that real? How on earth did I miss that one?

The one's they're bringing back are full auto.



 

If you work in LE it should be a well known fact that 3 people can keep a secret if 2 are dead

They should allow any soldier ONE bringback of any configuration.  Make them a new class that is not transferable for 50 years except for repairs.  Should motivate soldiers to not have to sneak around and also provide a mechanism to start detecting contraband coming into the country.

Umm...no. There's quite a few, even in the infantry, that shouldn't be carrying full auto weapons and required special attention a lot of times. Now imagine some POG who sees a weapon twice a year outside of deployment coming home with a full auto AK...





 

Exactly. To the victors (should) go the spoils.

so only people that pay 15k + 200 should be able to own one?





 

I'm not sure about the import restrictions on parts sets, but this would be a cool program to have in place for the troops. I'm sure the red tape and publicity would be too much, though.
 

An increase in robberies and burglaries has pushed Chattanooga’s crime rate higher than that of two of the most dangerous cities in America — Detroit and Atlanta.

Chattanooga ranked 11th among the top 20 for the highest crime rates among U.S. cities with a population of 100,000 or more, according to the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies.

The center has gathered state and federal crime data since 2005 for cities and counties in Chattanooga’s metropolitan statistical area. This is the third such report by the center on crime, which publishes every two years since 2006.

*************************************************************************************************************************************************

Hooray for us.

 

How many are smuggled back to the USA or UK and not even found?

How about if you're a fucking crook, bringing back guns the Army has said are forbidden, then you sell to OTHER fucking crooks who are in a STOLEN fucking car and smoking dope .... and then said fuckheads go fucking ROB BANKS AND SHOOT AT COPS .....

You go to prison. Forever. Goodbye. Sorry, I lost the key.

Everything you have done for your country has been for not, because you are a piece of shit and you deserve EVERYTHING you get.

Doc

he fails at opsec.

wow

Why did he take the chance to ruin his life?


Everyone knows you can buy AK's & grenades in Arizona through our gun show loop holes!

That's not as bad as this..

in 91' a guy tried to ship a mortar round back home.

Problem 1: The were x-raying all packages going back home.
Problem 2: He didn't know anything about them. It had the fuse in and the wire out..

One way trip to Kansas..

We also had a nurse try to bring an AK from Saudi to Bahrain for a pilot she knew.
Saudi boarder guards stooped her on the causeway because they could see it in the back of the HMMVW she was driving. Didn't even try to cover it up..
Our CO had to go get her..

I've seen a few dumbasses in my time but besides the guys that get weeded out of basic training I don't know that there are infantry guys that can't be trusted with full auto...if you can't be trusted with a firearm it doesn't really make a difference if it's semi, auto, or muzzle loading.

in before the cop haters!

I don't see that happening.

No dogs were shot and no one was killed for answering their door..

ive heard of this being done before this. wonder how many have come here

Oh man you just stepped in a pile of dogshit!

 

Right to own and ability to operate are separate things ;) Never said they didn't have the right...I've seen some really scary stuff that makes me wonder how some guys made it out of basic.





 

Well, the solution seems obvious enough: The UN should ban "high-powered battle weapons" in Iraq and Afghanistan.