An upstate New York man got a knock on the door recently. While the delivery man may have looked like a Big Brown Truck driver, he was really a federal agent. Why? Because Jonathan Roberts of Canandaigua had been buying cheap, knock-off gun accessories from China.
Roberts had purchased gear to make a GLOCK into a machine pistol.
From 13wham.com:
During an interview, Roberts reportedly told investigators he had ordered the packages off of the app “Wish” and that he was a collector. He reportedly told investigators he ordered the devices because he thought “they looked cool.” …
Roberts reportedly told agents “he ordered a lot of things on the Wish app, but most of it wasn’t real or was junk,” and he didn’t think they would work, court papers state.
The feds searched his home.
Investigators say suppressors were found in Roberts’ residence. He reportedly told them he built them as replicas and that they did not work.
We don’t know where Robert got the suppressor parts, but we have a pretty good guess. In the interest of science, we downloaded the Wish app (shopping made fun) to see what we could see.
We couldn’t find the gear to convert GLOCKs to fully automatic, but we found plenty of other interesting items.
Most of the suppressor parts say they’re for airsoft. Uh huh.
The openings in those K baffles are pretty big for airsoft guns, aren’t they? Roberts told investigators that the suppressors he built didn’t work. Did he really think they’d test his cans to see, or that it would make any difference?
There is no “Drarer” in Utah. Still, you know Wish sells great products, because everything is rated either four or five stars!
That’s a really nice fake AAC logo that’s been spray-painted on that can.
Wish sells a lot more than just suppressors. They also hawk plenty of other cheap knock-offs like…holsters.
It’s totally awesome that you can earn 10% cash back by buying fake Serpas, isn’t it?
That’s a pirated Benchmade Infidel. A real one that’s actually made in Oregon will run you $350 or more. Of course, the genuine article won’t have a pot metal blade, comes with an actual edge on it and lasts more than two weeks before falling apart in your hand.
That’s a nice Ruger.
We’re not sure what kept the Chinese factory from painting an EOTech logo on these fake “holographic reflex” sights, but it probably wasn’t scruples.
The factory obviously had no compunction about trying to pass these pieces of junk off as genuine Leupold LCOs.
For reference, this is what a real LCO looks like. There are a lot of reasons the one made in Oregon costs $700 (quality, dependability, toughness, accuracy), not $43.
We were going to order a couple of these just to break them down and see what kind of junk goes into them, but we didn’t want to encourage them by giving them even a few dollars.
Long story short, be very careful when looking for “bargains” through shady apps and web sites. We shouldn’t have to say it, but we will: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
As Mr. Roberts, the New York stater, has found out, you can get yourself in a lot of legal hot water depending on what you buy.
Court papers allege he told investigators he knew the devices he ordered online were illegal to be owner (sic) in New York, but added “he thought those types of things were cool because he is a collector.” He reportedly added he thought they were legal because customs allowed them into the country.
That kind of explanation won’t get you far with the ATF.