How Easy Is It to Buy Guns on the Dark Web?

Michael Albert Focia is a 50-year-old from Montgomery, Alabama. He’s sitting in prison for selling firearms without a license and shipping them illegally. Focia used the dark web to sell firearms to people in other states and countries.

“Modern criminals often think that the secrecy provided by the internet gives them freedom to violate the law,” U.S. Attorney Gorge Beck said.

Michael Andrew Ryan, a.k.a. “Gunrunner,” was a 35-year old man from Manhattan, Kansas. Ryan was busted for illegally exporting semi-automatic rifles and handguns to Scotland, Ireland, England and Australia. Ryan removed the serial numbers to make them harder to trace.

“The fact that international firearms trafficking has reached Kansas shows the power of the Internet,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall.

Both Focia and Ryan were using a website called “Black Market Reloaded.”

GAO and ATF Stings

When you think of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), it conjures up images of budgets, reports, and bean counters. It turns out, though, that some of its investigations…