In November 2018, a U.S. Army veteran and a soldier on active duty attempted to sell weapons stolen from North Carolina’s Fort Bragg. Hearing from contacts that the buyers planned to take the guns into Mexico, they set out for El Paso, Texas.
But the inside story of how two men who’d forged a deep bond amid the violence of the battlefield attempted to sell stolen Army weapons reveals another kind of threat: an organized group of soldiers and veterans taking advantage of flaws in the military’s system to make fast money.
Their work eliminating improvised explosive devices set by the Taliban was nonstop, and gave them little time to process what they saw, heard and smelled. It was a pressure cooker of a job inside a pressure cooker, intense even in the high stakes world of the battlefield. They stashed traumatic experiences and images deep inside themselves, and their comradery helped blunt the stress.
Meanwhile, Jarvis remained in the Army. At Fort Bragg, home to some of the Army’s most elite units, Jarvis worked in an armory. And that gave him access to a wealth of military firearms, parts and other equipment such as night vision goggles and explosives.Inside the Fort Bragg armory, Jarvis took photographs of weaponry — and then he stole it, and set out to sell it.
“As soon as he named his price I thought he was joking since they’re definitely USED,” Anderson wrote. “I’m not sure if it’s his first time or not. But it’s the last time I ask around for .”What Anderson didn’t know is that Evan was a longtime confidential informant working with Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security.
In Florida, Jarvis and Sumlin cleaned the firearms to remove their fingerprints. They also paid to have some parts modified to fit the rifles. With the cache assembled, cleaned, packed in storage containers and loaded for delivery, the men got into the SUV for the 24-hour drive to Texas. Yet the weapons recovered did not account for all that was missing from Bragg’s armory. According to the report by Army criminal investigators, the items stolen between Sumlin, Jarvis and their accomplices between 2014 and 2018 were valued at close to $180,000. But the U.S. government only recovered roughly $26,000 worth.
“Boss is extremely happy ... It was a good hit,” the agent replied. “Bad guys thought we were narco traffickers from Mexico ... Using their weapons against troops.”Sumlin posted bail and returned to his Florida home to pick up the pieces. He faced a possible 70 years in prison, and struggled under the weight of PTSD.“Dude is this you?” an EOD brother asked.
“Bro, you AND your service. You’re a piece of ,” wrote one EOD group member. “You betrayed everyone you ever worked with as soon as you tried to sell weapons and explosives to a cartel.” The other seven counts were dropped. The maximum term was now 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.Each was sentenced to five years’ probation, and Jarvis was ordered to mental health counseling and required to take prescribed medication.
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