Two plead guilty in machine gun smuggling case
Two Las Vegas men pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday in a conspiracy with a U.S. Navy SEAL to sell machine guns and other weapons smuggled from the Middle East.
Andrew Kaufman, 36, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to sell machine guns, other firearms and explosives and illegal transfer of a machine gun.
Omar Aguirre, 35, who had not previously been charged in the case, pleaded guilty to a criminal information also charging him with conspiracy to sell the weapons and explosives.
Both men are to be sentenced March 25 before Senior U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George.
The U.S. attorney's office said Kaufman and Aguirre obtained illegal weapons and explosives through co-conspirator Nicholas Bickle, a Navy SEAL from San Diego.
"Bickle allegedly smuggled the weapons and explosives to the United States from overseas, and the defendants then arranged for the weapons and explosives to be transported from San Diego to Las Vegas and Colorado, where they sold them to individuals, including individuals who had the intent to take the firearms to Mexico," the U.S. attorney's office said in a news release.
More than 70 firearms were smuggled and sold in the conspiracy, including rifles, pistols, shotguns, and machine guns, the U.S. attorney's office said.
Bickle, 33, and another defendant, Richard Paul, 34, of Colorado, were arraigned Thursday morning on a superseding indictment which charges them with conspiracy and a variety of federal weapons and explosives charges. They pleaded not guilty to the charges and face trial in January.
The defendants were charged following a five-month investigation by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
