Class Nicholas Bickle, a 33-year old Navy SEAL from Colorado and based in San Diego, has been arrested and charged with participating in a multi-state gun-trafficking ring, supplying AK-47s and handguns he allegedly smuggled from Iraq and Afghanistan. One of his alleged accomplices kept C-4 explosives stashed at home. Oh yeah: and Bickle was working on the set of Transformers 3.

According to a criminal complaint filed against Bickle and his alleged co-conspirators in U.S. district court in Nevada — our Doc of the Day, which you can read below — the elite sailor was the supplier for a team of four illicit gun salesmen. Eric D. Fox, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, stated in the complaint that Bickle was able to supply the guns because SEALs don’t have to have their bags checked when returning from deployments. One of Bickle’s accomplices, Richard Paul, bragged to an undercover federal agent, “There is still Iraqi sand in this shit.”

Fox and his agents learned about the smuggling ring through an informant, and arranged to buy handguns and AK-47-model machine guns from the group on several occasions from June to October. At least 84 AK-47s, manufactured in Russia, Romania and elsewhere, were smuggled into the country for the group from “Iraq and/or Afghanistan.” Markings on some of the guns specify that they were the property of the Iraqi military. Handguns went for around $300; machine guns for around $1300.

According to Fox’s investigation, the group had easy access to the guns: Some of the handguns an undercover federal agent bought “were originally shipped to Charleston Air Force Base in 2005, along with approximately 360 other similar handguns.” Anyone who’s seen Armed Forces Network commercials on bases in Iraq and Afghanistan knows that troops are routinely warned against taking “war trophies” — like weapons — back to the States.

In a Nevada federal court yesterday, federal prosecutor Drew Smith called Bickle a “rogue Navy SEAL.” Bickle and his accomplices “didn’t care if the weapons wound up in Mexico or on the streets of Las Vegas” as long as they got paid. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the SEAL command in Coronado is cooperating with the investigation.

Bickle is described in the complaint as “very disciplined.” He certainly had a distinct style of operational security. “If you ever fuck with me,” he allegedly told a co-conspirator who dimed him out to the feds, “you know who we are. We’re the government, we’ll catch you.”

But he appears to be the most professional of the alleged gun-runners. Paul, a civilian identified in the complaint as the one of the undercover agent’s gun vendors, had no problem blabbing that Bickle was the source of the ring’s weapons. He also didn’t mind arranging arms sales by text message, telling an agent, “I’ll have it all set up for you! U want 10 k’s and whatever 9’s are left??” And he stashed five pounds of C-4 at his home, along with detonators, grenades and night-vision goggles, officers discovered.

Perhaps most bizarrely, Bickle appears to have been working on the latest Michael Bay action flick. One of the ATF agents investigating Bickle found “photos taken on the Chicago set of ‘Transformers 3,’ which included an individual who appeared to be Bickle. Further, Bickle’s cell phone location and bank debit records correspond with the filming of ‘Transformers 3.’”

Bickle’s due in a San Diego court for his arraignment today. For now, read the criminal complaint against him, Paul and their alleged accomplice Andrew Kaufman:

Bickle Complaint

Photo: U.S. Air Force

See Also:

• Note to Gunrunners: Don’t Use Gmail
• ‘500 AK-47s, Please’: Art Imitates Blackwater (Updated)
• ‘Merchant of Death’ Will Face American Justice
• Arms Dealer Nabbed in Thailand

Authors: Spencer Ackerman

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