By John Crump
Midlothian, Illinois –-(Ammoland.com)-Two men have stolen around 400 firearms from a UPS facility in Whitehaven, Tennessee on Sunday, September 30th, 2018, according to the ATF. Whitehaven is a neighborhood located in Memphis.
Thieves used a U-Haul truck in the heist of the firearms driving away with thousands of dollars in guns. This theft was one of the largest firearms thefts in US history. UPS immediately contact the ATF which dispatched agents to the scene of the crime.
The ATF asked the public for help in recovering the firearms and offered a $5,000 reward for information about the theft. UPS refused to comment on the incident citing their policy of not commenting on an open investigation.
On Tuesday morning police in Midlothian, Illinois spotted a suspicious U-Haul truck in a store parking lot. Upon investigation, two men in the truck ran from police. Officers pursued the suspects as other police officers investigated the U-Haul truck.
Upon opening the back of the truck, law enforcement officers discovered 350 of the stolen guns. It appears that these are some of the same firearms from the UPS theft.
Police were able to track down one suspect and take him into custody, but the other suspect is still at large. As of this writing, police are still trying to locate the second suspect.
Law enforcement officials are not stating publicly if the suspect in custody is one of the two men seen in security camera footage from the UPS facility.
The ATF do believe that the 350 firearms were on their way to Chicago. Agents are also looking into manifest to see how many guns are still missing.
ATF bureau spokesman Michael Knight said that the guns could present a danger to the safety of the public and first responders. The ATF is also not speculating if the theft was an inside job, or how the thieves knew where the guns were in the shipping facility.
“We are concerned that the firearms will end up on the streets not only potentially in the Memphis area but also across the country,” Knight said. “The criminal element knows no geographical boundary.”
When companies ship firearms through UPS, they do not mark the outside of the boxes for security purposes. The thieves knew where UPS were storing the guns.
The bureau is also not stating what type of firearms the suspects took in the theft. The Information to who shipped the guns and who was going to be the recipient of the firearms was not released, but local news outlets are reporting it was Ruger brand handguns in .22lr and .380
ATF Special Agent in Charge, Marcus Watson remarked, “ATF’s Crime Gun Intelligence will leverage investigative resources combined with the community partnerships to solve this violent criminal act.”
An ATF source familiar with the case, but not authorized to speak on the matter has informed AmmoLand the shipper was shipping guns to different cities and different companies.
It is unknown if authorities have recovered all the stolen firearms from the theft. It will take time to match serial numbers from the recovered guns to the shipping manifest.
Anyone with information about this crime should contact ATF at (800) ATF-Guns (1-800-283-4867) or the Memphis Police Department at (901) 528-2274.
Anyone with information can also submit a tip anonymously by using the Reportit® app, available from both Google Play and the Apple App store. The ATF has also made Reportit® available through the web at https://reportit.com/
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.