The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) found itself in hot water last week when an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that thousands of firearms and firearm parts had been stolen from an ATF gun-destruction facility in West Virginia.
According to the report, a contract security guard at the facility has been stealing federal property since 2016, including automatic rifles, semi-automatic handguns, Glock slides, magazines, and scopes. The ATF is being cagey about how many firearms the guard stole, but his plea agreement indicates that he nabbed at least 3,000 Glock slides, over 4,000 firearm parts, fifteen rifles, eighty handguns, and nine NFA Class III firearms.
The ATF hasn’t said how many of the firearms and parts it has recovered, but the Journal Sentinel reports that the stolen firearms have been recovered across the country, in Mexico and the Caribbean, and at crime scenes. All 25 ATF field offices have been tasked with recovering the firearms.
April Langwell, the agency spokeswoman, told the Journal Sentinel, “Most of the property has been recovered; however, the investigation is ongoing so we cannot provide additional details.”
“There are lessons to be learned from everything,” she wrote. “No business or organization is immune to the damage that a corrupt contractor, especially a security guard, can inflict.”
SEE ALSO: Audit Shows ATF Can’t Keep Track of Ammo, 31K Rounds Missing
The ATF first learned of its security breach in February of this year when the Philadelphia Police Department recovered a .40-caliber Glock handgun, the slide of which was traced back to the ATF’s National Firearms and Ammunition Destruction Branch (NFAD) in Martinsburg, WV. The ensuing investigation revealed that a 52-year-old contract security guard named Christopher Yates had stolen the slide, and he admitted to stealing from the facility for the past three years.
According to his plea agreement, Yates, who had access to the entire facility, would enter before the other employees arrived and steal firearms and firearm parts. It’s unclear how he smuggled the weapons out of the facility or why some of the firearms were falsely listed as being destroyed.
Yates sold Glock slides for $30 a pop along with complete firearms. The agreement lists several specific examples, including a Sig Sauer P229 he sold to a contract maintenance worker at NFAD for $300 and a Springfield 1911 he sold to the same worker for $450. That 1911 had been recovered at a criminal investigation in Florida.
One of Yates’ biggest clients, based on the information in the agreement, was a Pennsylvania firearms dealer named Adam Schreiber. Between 2016 and 2019, Yates sold to Schreiber 15 rifles, 40-50 Sig Sauer handguns, 30 revolvers, 10-15 AR-type lower receivers, and four automatic weapons. It’s unclear how many of those firearms, if any, have been recovered.
SEE ALSO: ATF Comes Under Fire for Treatment of Women in Workplace
Agents recovered in Yates’ apartment $1,000 in government property he stole from NFAD. Upon his arrest, they found two firearms in his truck he had stolen from the facility, including a fully automatic FN P90.
The SNAFU has sparked investigations by the inspector general for both the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security along with the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson (chair) and Gary Peters (ranking member) released a statement Wednesday blasting the ATF for their negligence.
“The ATF is tasked with protecting our communities and the theft of a substantial amount of weapons, parts and ammunition from ATF facilities raises significant concerns,” they said. “Our committee is seeking a full accounting of this situation, and we hope the ATF will be as transparent as possible while we continue to pursue answers.”
Just like the Johnny Cash song! – “He took it one piece at a time, and it didn’t cost him a dime!”
The principal interest of ATF is paperwork. As a dealer, I attended an ATF seminar on the correct way to fill out the 4473 and how to avoid certain common errors. And the form will change again this year. Each change just introduces new opportunities for error. And the form is racist. Unless the applicant indicates that he or she is or is not Hispanic or Native American, NICS will not process the application. “Race” is the added part of that question.
Anyone know how I can get a contract cleaning job either for the A.T.F. or D.E.A. ?
A perfect example of when a government grows to big….
What’s wrong with taking Glock slides? Actual guns would be different. Why was the BATFE destroying perfectly good parts? Taking something that was being thrown away is no crime. He sold them for peanuts, though, today Glock slides cost a couple hundred, at least.
The theft is wrong, but what is also wrong is instead of destruction parts should be sold at auction
ATF good ole boy roundup (google it)
ATF are thieves. In my own personal experience in 1989 the feds were pretending to be two different mafia factions and followed me.
I had a SWD 9 mm pistol, registered, New never fired, unloaded and stored behind my seat in a pickup. The ammo was in the glove compartment locked.Former Director of the Glynco Federal Law Enforcement Training Center; Charles F. Rinkovich and a corruyGlynn County ZCop named Graves forcefully took my keys unlocked my truck and stole my firearm and I was never able to get it back.
I wish I had made a deal with the security guard maybe he could had sold me my firearm.
Yours Sincerely,
Mark Iannicelli (advocate against gangstalking)
Fightgangstalking.com
ATF , check out Good Ike boy roundup on line.
There has already been at least one case that I know of where a gun that was presumed destroyed ended up as a drop gun after a Houston,Texas cop murdered an innocent civillian.
If you wonder where some of these guns come from it is from law enforcement doing illegal confiscations like my SWD 9mm stolen by Charles F. Rinkovick (former Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Director) assisted by a late Officer Graves of the Glynn County Police in Brunswick Georgia.My firearm was new,(never fired) behind my seat in a pickup truck unloaded and the ammo was locked in my glove compartment. ATF is THEFT !
Yours Sincerely,
Mark Iannicelli
(www.fightgangstalkkng.com)
Those baby burning lowlifes are always in trouble.
Waco, Fast and Furious, Soldier of Fortune Magazine recovered one ATF agent’s records where he embezzled over a million dollars in property.
Ban the ATF!
Pelosi’s face should be the new scull and cross bones
I dont see a problem with a legal civilian that could own a P90. It would take a doctor or lawyer anyway to even be able $$ to feed it.
Just another Federal swamp that needs draining..
Hahahahaha!! Looks like the only atf Employee actually standing up for 2A rights was a contracted security guard. Good on him. Shall not be infringed.
Who’s watching the hen house?
Confiscated weapons stolen by entrusted employees is not sound gun control.
I am kind of curious as to how a contract security guard, gained access to the electronic files that allowed him to show that some of these had been destroyed. And, if he did do that, why did he not do it for all of the weapons? Glock slides are not registered, only the lower receivers so that was not it. The P90 “machine gun”, the pistols, revolvers and the lower receivers all have to be registered and the affidavit says 4 fully automatic, not select fire, weapons.
Of course, there is way more to this than is being told. But I bet the real concern is how they were able to make the guns “disappear” in the paperwork because it shows they were destroyed. The only way they know about that is the guns they confiscated from this guy show in the system to have been destroyed. Contractor guards do not have that kind of access, no matter what anyone else thinks. He had access to the entire facility but that does not include computer network access.
PART OF THE NEW –GUNS FOR LIBERALS PROGRAM — TEACH THEM TO LOOK IN HOLE, CHECK FOR ROUND BY PULLING TRIGGER
The BIG story here is that ATF is unethically destroying perfectly good property that should otherwise be sold to the highest bidder. IMHO Uncle Sam is STEALING from the taxpayers by NOT selling these weapons as surplus property.
I agree 100%.
Those guns and parts should be inspected for safe operation Nd sold. If one doesn’t measure up, destroy it. NFA Class all firearms sold.
Background checks could be done as any FFL holder would do.
The gun manufacturers probably wouldn’t like it, but so be it. They would recover.
Spot On !!
That would be funny if it wasn’t so true.
And as such, sentenced to 40 years to life to paying taxes without the possibility of parole.
Having had the great displeasure of dealing with these ignorant yaps, I would say they have been picking through ‘their stolen loot’ for their own collections. I have also seen this frequently within local police departments.
Blame the security gaurd, sure. I guess if u believe the steven paddock story you will believe anything.
Where in the hell does the ATF have all of these firearms from ? Did they steal grandpas collection while he was in the nursing home ? When they found my stolen Glock 17 they kept it ? How about Bubba’s stash in his trunk? Like where did they acquire them from ?
I hope the security guard is it a democrat otherwise He will get off Scott free with no penalties at all and a bonus and his new paycheck
Smokin’ a little dope this early in the morning?
That’s bullshit. You should have stated that if he is a Democrat then he’ll get off. If he’s Republican than they will nail his ass to the wall. If the dems get their way we won’t have any guns. Only police and criminals will have guns.
Guess that will make me a criminal since I will not comply with communist/socialist libtards.
I think that was sarcasm.
Gee, corruption at another federal agency. What a surprise. Wonder what our founding fathers would have thought about giving these alphabet agencies so much power. Perhaps that is why they did not codify them in the Constitution of the united states. As such, do they really have any legal authority over the lives of American citizens? We allow them to usurp our Bill of Rights at our own peril.
Absolutely not! Every alphabet agency is absolutely unconstitutional as well as infringing on people’s human rights. If all of the coward ass American Gun Owners would just stand together and say “no more infringement” there isn’t a damn thing the government could do! Hell, if even 10% would do that there would be nothing the government could do! We are the employers of the government and they are SUPPOSED to represent our wishes! Yet the gun community (as well as the entire country) is so divided and without any common goal and no backbone that not only are they losing their rights THEY DESERVE TO LOSE ALL OF THEIR GUN RIGHTS! A man who stands idly by whilst evil occurs is WORSE than said evil because at least the evil makes it’s intentions known.
Hey D R ,
What are you doing about the government controlling our gun rights? Our life’s? And basically everything we can do in our life?
You got balls saying that, I for one couldn’t stand the way our government strips us of all our rights, how they fabricate crimes against us and lie in court with fake witnesses, etc.
So I felt sorta the way you feel, until I really went to see what I could stand up and do.
It basically comes down to committing acts of terrorism.
Because other than that, it means standing up against the greatest military in the world today, which is our military, and nobody wants to do that.
Nobody wants to go to war against our own country, it isn’t the soldiers choice of what to do, they only follow orders, but they have to follow orders.
Now we are back to square one, committing acts of terrorism, nobody wants to do that either, that’s what our military and the American people fight against everyday, because this is our country, there isn’t a big building full of the dirty Feds who tweek our rights into their favor, strip us of our rights.
Just so you know, theirs probably millions of us that are just as mad as you, fed up with the Feds trampling over our rights, taking our freedom more and more everyday.
But until we can figure out a way to take our country back from the Feds who are destroying it daily, we need a better plan to do it, but the gun owners you are saying are cowards, your wrong, we’ve only looked at what our options are, and waiting for a plan!
Look for the ATF Agent driving the new Aston Martin.
“Automatic rifles”? Sensationalist Horsepoo!
Seems like people want to blame politicians for everything , maybe some is earned and others like a
screw-up by a government facility/agency . And the contractors they hire .
Did this man go through a background check ? if he did have criminal back ground check did it say , he is honest .
back ground check . Can’t tell about any future crime they may commit .
Guess someone missed mind reading class .
Mind reading class? How about reading comprehension. The article stated clearly that the ATF listed some of the firearms as destroyed, when in reality, they were not. The government clearly fabricated documents regarding those firearms. What was the plan for those “off the books” guns?
Yep, off the books guns for sure, maybe another fast and furious with out screwing some gun shop owner. Some found in the Caribbean? Thats a good one, wonder which cartel got first dibs on the free shooters?? Wonder why they keep your legally owned firearm once it’s recovered from a stolen file, get the guns off the streets no matter how you do it? I guess so, if you can’t bust enough dirt bags go after the guy next door who got his gun stolen, and blame him for improper storage or some crap like that. What a SNAFU this one is.
This is totally insane, they are tasked with taking our constitutional rights so that they can later be stolen from them and distributed to an underground market that we all know has no criminals without so much as a slap in the back when they screw up, where are those prison sentences for the criminals that deal in these weapons. These are truly a bunch of morons supported by a bunch of bigger morons that think these idiots actions will keep them safe. GOD SAVE US ALL!!!
Yea they were being sold off on E-bay and if you bought a part from a seller, a “NICE” Man from the ATF came knocking on your door wanting them back. Hey He offered a receipt but no refund. Don’t ask me how I know………
How can you trace a Glock slide? But anyway, the ATF should have been disbanded right after Fast and Furious murder of our border patrol agent.
Now its spending it time enforcing California’s unconstitutional state laws, which I find outrageous.
Glock slides and barrels have the frame’s serial number stamped on them. Which is a problem for the 80% builders who are doing it themselves to avoid being tracked by the gummint.
All Glocks have serial numbers on slide and barrel as well
I have had experience with the Demiling of weapons while in the army and I can tell you that if the people in charge are incompetent, lazy and/or in on it the stealing of weapons and parts is quite easy. The last unit I was attached to had charter authority to destroy foreign weapons and had a lot of them to destroy after the first Gulf War. I examined their written instruction procedures and to told them weapons would be stolen if they proceeded as planned. I was told to F off 4 times and mind my own business. I told them the who what when where and how the weapons would be stolen and received the same response.
The end result was that a lot of these weapons and sear assemblies for full auto weapons were stolen. Only through shear luck were at least some were found in a soldiers wall locker.
Oops
If the Democrat lefty’s were in charge of every thing, this would be news as repurposed firearms, not stolen! Fast and furious anyone?
The article states something about a security guard “a corrupt contractor, especially a security guard”. I’m a security guard and this statement that singles out a security guard it’s not accurate: anybody in the ATF facility could have been stealing that property, from the janitor to any employee. The security measures at this facility failed and that must be investigated and corrected.
I doubt that security guard was operating alone.
According to info in the guard’s plea deal, he worked for Allied. For those of you not in the industry, the now titled Allied Universal Security is the largest security contractor in the country, and is infamous for taking over contracts/buying out other security outfits and immediately slashing pay & benefits. In one case I know of, it was a 20% pay cut, elimination of overtime, and effective loss of pretty much all benefits. You get what you pay for.
When the Nazi government made it law to punish people for assisting Jews, only those who understood how wrong it was, and had courage to do the right thing, did so.
This is a much lesser cause, but the rationale behind this problem is totally screwed up. “Stealing” property that is about to be destroyed. What does that really mean? It’s true, the guy broke trust, but how can he be blamed for doing what we all wish we had the gonads to do? I appreciate his efforts to salvage all he could and could never personally judge this guy for doing wrong or harm.
It is only ironic that this happened to the ATF.
Well, if he was giving the firearms away, or keeping them himself, I would tend to agree with you, but, it appears he was doing it only for financial gain. I do have a problem with why the firearms are being destroyed, though. So what if they were used in a crime. Are they legal firearms? Why not sell them to legal people instead of paying to have them destroyed. Oh yeah, that would make too much sense.
The vast majority of the missing guns went into the useless scum cops private collections.
I’ve personally known of a few cops, “State and local” that keep a throw away gun under the drivers seat of their patrol car. Personally seen it quite a few times. If I hadn’t seen it myself I don’t think I would have believed it. I would love to believe that law enforcement wasn’t completely crooked and totally incompetent. This current screw up with the ATF is just another example of how corrupt our government agencies are.
I’ve experienced so much complete bullshit and lies it’s unbelievable and outrageous. It’s really sad to see the current state of things in this country. Trump is trying his best, but the dems keep him from being able to do his job properly. And for the Trump haters remember he is doing this God awful job for free while the dems want pay raises for their lies and incompetence.
Things will get worse before they get better.
Same old tune by another incompetent governmental agency: “…cannot provide additional details.” That is shorthand for a coverup. If Americans knew of the incompetence and/or corruption we would need to have a house cleaning. This way nobody loses the fat retirement plan.
I didn’t know that they _had_ a dedicated destruction facility. Who knew that they thought that one was even needed. Gee, on the Internet, virtue signalers manage to cut up their evil firearms at home. Easy peasy.
GREAT: another screw up by the ATF, Trump should clean out all of Obamas appointed CREW.
Reading is fundamental. He was stealing from 2016-2019. What year was trump selected?
And if YOU would give it a little more thought at how these agencies work, their appointment heads and employees from 2016 are the result from the POLICY put in place by former administrations PRIOR to 2016. …Case in point – are we still feeling the impact from misfits and misfit decisions resulting out of the 8 years of the most anti-American-progressive president in our history? (might as well say marxist…as he and Bernie Sanders support the same ideology and try to place it in a socialist wrapper).
Does the government have plans to destroy other legal items such as Q-tips, wrenches or bicycles as well? Anything the government possesses shouldn’t be destroyed, it should be auctioned. Except monkeys. Monkeys should be destroyed.
Sadly many legal items are destroyed because of the circumstance they were acquired or confiscated. Most are evidence in a crime, stolen, or modified to an illegal configuration,
Once the decision to destroy is made, it is absolute.
This can be seen even at the local level with “buy-back” programs that are intended to get guns off the street. No difference is made between a $35 Saturday night special or a $3500 collector Colt SAA….. they both get chopped up.
Common Sense and government operations are like water and oil.
I know for a FACT. The guns bought at gun buy backs are not destroyed in most cases. This is one of the biggest scams about guns. They are sold at wholesale value either at auctions or in bulk lots to distributors. I am a gun dealer and buy these guns all the time to resale. The agencies make a lot of money from buybacks. So go sell your grandaddy’s war trophy Luger to your local Pawn Shop you will get more money and end result will be the same.
So, lots of guns stolen ever since Trump was installed by Russia with the help of the NRA. It figures.
However, you won’t hear Republicans bashing Trump like they bashed Obama. After all, Trump is a White Republican.
Things are stolen all the time! barry and ewic sent those guns, without tracking, south on purpose!
Great security, BTW, ATF!!
If the trail leads back to the president, his AG, or anyone else in his service, then yes, he should be prosecuted. Even though Obama and Holder never have been. Or did you forget that?
What would you prosecute obama and holder with?
You could prosecute obama and holder for almost everything under the sun.
Larry your Trump derangement syndrome and prejudice are so typical of leftest loonies it’s pathetic! Your god the obamantion in 2012, signed a law that enabled the government to indefinitely detain American citizens without a jury or Judge. The following year, Obama enabled the government to legally produce propaganda by signing an NDAA bill that packaged an end to the Smith-Mundit act that prevented the government from unleashing propaganda to its citizens. Most of the main stream media is now propaganda machine for their backers, the Marxist commies that own own them. Obama went after more journalist to silence them than all other presidents combined. Hos whole eight years if you really want to be truthful and find facts was nothing but a mob leader trying to undermine and set the USA up for destruction from within and since Hitlary did not get elected even with all their cheating, setups and propaganda the Democratic lefty loons have done nothing except go after Trump with made up lies, disinformation and have not done one single thing to help Americans! If the real facts come out obama, hillary, holder, lynch, and many many others would not only be in jail but under it for treason, conspiracy, murder and many other crimes! That is FACT!
Exactly right! Wish AG BARR would hurry up and start PROSECUTING!
Larry the leftist Loon…..not very astute at putting 2 + 2 together….. ” According to the report, a contract security guard at the facility has been stealing federal property since 2016 “……even though Trump wasn’t sworn into Office until late January 2017, the perp was a Trump plant…….and Larry…..here’s another News Flash for you…..According to your savior Robert Mueller……There was NO EVIDENCE of Collusion with the Russian Government……Take your Meds and head back to the CNN website
“a contract security guard”:
Keeping in mind that Federal “contracts” take years to establish.
Making the “contract security guard” an employee hired under a Contract established by Obama’s incompetent ATF leadership. The likelihood, is that the “contract” security employee supplier was not hired based upon their abiding by Federal laws.
The entire process for establishing the contract for security employees should be investigated; as well as investigating who hired the light fingered employee and how they verified prior employment.
An Obama/Holder cockup all of the way. Especially since “draining the swamp” hasn’t reached into the Treasury Dept., ATF, or even deep into the DOJ. Something about TDS obstructionists hired during previous administrations.
Except your boy Mueller says Trump wasn’t “installed by Russia.” And your boy Obama ALLLOWED guns to be GIVEN to Mexican drug lords. But other than that, you’re 100 percent accurate. Dumb ass.
You must be angry Larry from Brady, Tx.
What does Trump’s color or race have to do with the total incompetence and corruption of pretty much all government agencies. I’m so sick to death of hearing because Trump is white he can just do as he pleases.
I’m white and American Indian and that doesn’t come into play anytime I’m making important decisions. And did everyone forget the fact that Obama wasn’t 100% African American. Hello… he was a 50/50 mix. Bit I guess everybody forgot about that. I guess people also forgot Obama’s Fast and Furious blunder. All those firearms and other illegal things were done and Obama lined his pockets with some of the profits from it. Yes, granted other agencies played a huge part in it. But because it was Obama backed everything was just brushed under the carpet.
People need to get of of the “race has everything to do with it train” and see it for what it really is.
Wow. If that were even one gun not locked up for us we’d lose our right forever because we gave 1 criminal a gun. Cant wait to see all the excuses…..
Jordan, it like do as we say, not as we do
Tell this to Dummycrat candidate Eric Smallbrain, who wants us to store all our weapons at \”secured gun ranges\”….LOL
Yes, yes it does, and the fuel manufacturer and the tire company and the liquor store, Ford knew their product could be used in a criminal way, speeding, running stop signs and on and on and yet they chose to manufacture and sell these knowingly dangerous products, they didn’t have these problems in the former soviet union or China.
Yeah, but summary execution was/ is a lot more common there.
High Risk/Value material and low bidder security service. No surprises here. Avg Joe buying non-nfa stuff don’t have liability but will loose the stolen property they received. The gun shop/FFL taking in such quantity, multiple same items and NFA stuff without seller having “Stamps” and proper NFA Transfer documentation will hang. Maybe an actual 10 Years and $250K Fine the ATF threatens for every violation. Lol
You hirer guards to guard outside the securied material area, especially low bidder security in a tempting environment.
Somebody really screwed up royally. I would think a facility like that is high security, with monitoring devices, CCTV all over, protocols, and accountability on what comes in, goes out, and disposition.
A case of the fox watching hen house.
If the thefts resulted in injury or death, they could simply sue the guns manufacturer, problem solved!
Does that mean I can sue Ford from when that drunk driver hit me?
No. In the liberal dystopia there are no criminals, only crime.
Unless you’re a straight, white, conservative, male. Then your birth certificate is proof that you’re a criminal.
Don’t forget the other liberal labels: Misogynist, Nazi, Supremist, Homophobic, Privileged, Ill-gotten wealth, Conspiracist, Racist, Bigot, etc, etc.