Marine Accused Of Selling Weapons From Camp Pendleton | EUROtoday

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A U.S. Marine who was an ammunition specialist at California’s Camp Pendleton is charged with stealing ammo and weapons, together with a shoulder-fired missile system, and conspiring to promote them in Arizona, based on courtroom paperwork.

Cpl. Andrew Paul Amarillas pleaded not responsible final Thursday in Phoenix to a number of prices together with conspiracy to commit theft and embezzlement of presidency property, and possession and sale of stolen ammunition. A choose ordered him to be held in custody pending trial.

Messages have been despatched Monday looking for remark from an lawyer for Amarillas and officers at Camp Pendleton.

Federal prosecutors mentioned Amarillas used his place as a technical specialist on the School of Infantry West to steal a minimum of one Javelin missile system, 1000’s of rounds of military-grade ammunition and different weapons-related materials between February 2022 and November 2025.

He’s accused of transporting the stolen materials to his residence state of Arizona, the place he offered them to unnamed co-conspirators, who then resold the tools to others, prosecutors mentioned. Some however not the entire stolen weapons and ammo has been recovered.

A co-conspirator had a quantity for Amarillas saved in a cellphone beneath the nickname “Andrew Ammo,” courtroom paperwork mentioned.

“(I) have 2 launchers that (I) think you’d like, if you want to take a look tomorrow,” Amarillas texted to a co-conspirator in August, based on the prison criticism. The textual content messages additionally included images, together with one in every of a conveyable Javelin missile system with a serial quantity that matched one which Amarillas had signed out from the navy base close to San Diego, the criticism mentioned.

Some of the ammunition was bought from co-conspirators by undercover officers, prosecutors mentioned.

“The objects of the conspiracy were to steal property and ammunition from the U.S. military and sell stolen U.S. military property and ammunition to others to earn money,” mentioned the criticism filed in U.S. District Court for Arizona.

In 2021, explosives went lacking from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms within the Southern California desert. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service mentioned on the time it was investigating the disappearance of explosives, however declined to offer particulars.

Associated Press journalist Jacques Billard in Phoenix contributed to this report.