Gubs for the day

John P. Martin has an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about a bad deal:

The L3 Thermal Eye Renegade 320 (photo) is a rifle scope designed to help American troops detect an enemy combatant a half-mile away in the dark. For a mere twelve thousand dollars, it's also just an online click away. That's why Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were suspicious when they got a tip in 2010 that a Northeast Philadelphia man had bought that scope and other military-grade night-vision items. There are no battlefields in Bustleton. The investigation that sprung from that tip entered its final phase when a Philadelphia judge opened a sentencing hearing for a Belarusian national accused of illegally exporting at least a hundred scopes, goggles, and similar devices. Prosecutors said Siarhei Baltutski was the ringleader of an international arms network that recruited US straw buyers, including Belarusians living as legal permanent residents in Philadelphia. They say he paid at least $700,000 for about a hundred banned items, though they say they suspect both numbers could be higher. Baltutski allegedly put the items up for resale on the black market, but agents cannot say for sure who bought them. "We know that similar devices have ended up in the hands of insurgents fighting US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert Livermore and Jerome Maiatico wrote in a memo to Judge Paul S. Diamond. They asked Diamond to imprison Baltutski for more than a dozen years. The case spotlighted the struggles of Federal agents trying to disrupt the illegal flow of military-grade equipment in an era when so many transactions occur anonymously and electronically. Though night-vision goggles, thermal imaging cameras, and similar high-tech devices are manufactured for American troops (and many carry four- and five-figure price tags) vendors are allowed to market and sell them commercially in the United States if buyers pledge to keep them here. Policing the sales can be difficult. Baltutski and his straw buyers bought half their items on on eBay. In the most recent fiscal year, Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE division, reported launching more than 1,800 counter-proliferation investigations, arresting 517 people, logging 399 convictions, and recovering millions of dollars of illegally smuggled items.

Rico says some things should not be available...