Stolen US Military Equipment Being Sold On eBay

I Buy These From eBay points out a Washington Post story about how stolen military equipment has ended up on eBay and Craigslist. Undercover investigators reported being able to purchase defense-related items with "no questions asked." Let's hope the sellers don't get their hands on any retired rebellious robots. From the Post: "Among the items purchased include two components from F-14 fighter jets, bought from separate buyers on eBay. The warplanes, now retired by the military, could easily be purchased and transferred to the Iranian military, which is seeking its components, the report said. Investigators couldn't determine where the sellers had obtained the F-14 parts. They also purchased from a Craigslist seller a used Nuclear Biological Chemical protective suit, other protective accessories as well as an unused chemical-biological canister, which contained the mask filter used to guard against warfare agents. The property was likely stolen from the Defense Department, the report said."

Comments

Re:Not smart

[Crayon Kid]

Or buy one. F15 is not the only model in the world. Nor are all fighter planes made by the US.

That's not the point. It's not about getting war tech, it's about studying current american war tech to find weaknesses.

Stuff like this surfacing on eBay is silly for many reasons. Frankly, I'm doubting the entire story, or at the very least the angle.

The WP article is full of inflamatory speculation, slapping together possibly unrelated information to make a troll. Every other paragraph has dubious points in it. What exactly are those "plane parts"? They're not saying. Who bought them? Not a peep, so then why finger Iran if there's no evidence? They say they couldn't figure out where the parts came from, yet they "must" be "stolen", because that's how they automatically define selling certain kinds of Army items.

Granted, any piece of knowledge about the US army may be useful for any foreign power. But if the US army doesn't want stuff to end up on eBay they should guard it more careful. Since they didn't, there's either major incompetence at play, or it wasn't such sensitive material after all.

Seriously, do you really think that truly useful information or material of this kind would be sold on eBay? When there are professional arms dealers and spies out there? Let's give those Hollywood movies a rest, shall we.

If I were to take this article at face value, I'd say it's an attempt at sticking it to the army for not taking better care of its stuff. While I'm all for that, it stops being funny once non sequitur allegations are made about certain foreign countries. Then it becomes a transparent attempt at instilling paranoia among the public. "Oh noes, Iran is buying our planes on eBay! How low have we sunk! We're doomed!" Please.

Don't know about the US army but...

[ZeroExistenZ]

.. My grandfather always has these kindof stories from when h e lead different sections in the Belgian army. Mostly it was because of the paperwork. I recall him telling about an inspector asking for a specific vehicle. My grandfather would look it up in the logbooks and reported it being at a certain base. After his reporting, he got a reply asking wherever he was "really sure". So he sent out a soldier to verify it, he came back, reported the vehicles present in that base. But the guy never checked the chassis numbers and such. He just confirmed there were vehicles of that type present.

Turned out, the bordercontrol had arrested some guys who'd stolen some vehicles. Officially they weren't gone as they weren't reported missing.

Same with selling overstock; Every month a train came by bringing soldiers' cigarettes. They were picked up from the town and brought to base. At a certain point the soldier ordered to pick them up reported the shipment being picked up by "unknown" individuals. (so some Germans have been imposing as an army unit to pick up the shipment cigarettes). Since then my grandfather was put in charge for a new order, with the order to order 20% extra "just in case".
Instead of piling up the 20%, they devised a plan to sell it consistently through an external contractor and the profits where split. Until bordercontrol noticed an unusual high amount of soldiers going home for the weekend and they've searched some vehicles.

This is all post-WW erra with a bloathed army with paper reporting, but still. I can imagine there are still people trying to make a profit like this or the same logistic problems.

Oh yea, my grandfather went on trail for that and got away clean because they had to sign a statement they couldn't sell "their own" rations. He stated he didn't, he had sold overstock. After that he was put in charge of all logistics instead of his own regiment and the statement was adjusted.