Montgomery Man Convicted For Illegal Gun Sales on Darknet Markets

Posted by: Tariq Riaz

July 9, 2015

You can scramble your Internet association, you can exchange bitcoin, and you can shroud your character in case you’re considering offering weapons on the Darknet Markets. Be that as it may, you still may end up in cuffs on the off chance that you neglect to wipe your fingerprints off the bundle before you send the request.

That is the thing that Michael Focia of Montgomery, Alabama, took in while making things as difficult as possible subsequent to being indicted offering unlicensed guns on the darknet markets. Focia, 48, confronts 15 years in federal prison for arranging two unlawful weapon deals to undercover agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Amid the investigation, Special Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) acted like weapon purchasers on two Darknet sites (Agora & Black Market Reloaded) and had the capacity arrange for the offer of two firearms from Focia. Subsequent to consenting to offer the weapons, Focia dispatched them from Alabama to Nebraska and New Jersey.In case of the New Jersey firearm, proof at trial demonstrated that Focia’s unique mark (fingerprints) was on the weapon’s bundling.

Undercover agents followed the serial number on one of the firearms, a .40-bore handgun, back to its unique proprietor, a father, bought the weapon for his son. At the point when the son didn’t need the weapon, Vice reported, the father put a notice in the ordered segment of the daily paper. A man calling himself Mike, later uncovered to be Focia, acquired the weapon.

“Commonly the guns that are being sold have as of now been utilized as a part of a crime,” ATF Special Agent Michael Knight said “Say it was utilized as a part of a crime in Colorado. In the event that it is recouped in Colorado, [law enforcement] can take after [the weapon] that much easier. Be that as it may, if the weapon winds up in another state it takes more more resources, more time to take after that gun.”

Michael Focia is only the most recent American to be captured as a result of unlawful movement on the Darknet. A 21-year-old Massachusetts man was captured in April for professedly attempting to purchase a handgun and silencer, and more than twelve Americans have been arrested and blamed for selling drugs on Darknet.

Updated: 2015-07-09