Grenades, rocket launchers, armour vests welcome to eBay

Sunday Age, Page: 9. Sunday, 18 May, 2008

The hand grenades were priced at less than $4 each, but ordering them by email from overseas with other military weapons ended up costing Bradley Stephen Kennedy $3250.
That’s what an Australian court fined Kennedy, 25, early this month when he was caught importing banned military hardware he had ordered on eBay. His wish list included a rocket launcher, grenades, rubber bullets, body armour and a bullet-pm of vest.
Investigators swooped on Kennedy after customs officers at airport mail centres spotted suspect packages sent to him over three months.
One package contained the bullet-proof vest. Another 13 packages containing weapons were also seized.
Customs investigations manager Richard Janeczko said that while some weapons were inert, army technicians revealed they could easily have been made operative. The weapons found at international mail centres in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth could easily have been used to kill and injure, Mr Janeczko said. The grenades still had intact fuses.
The internet was “a supermarket” of prohibited goods, “You can buy almost anything, from child pornography to tanks, on the internet. Our job is to try to keep the stuff off the street but in this game you can never guarantee you’re stopping all of it.”
But Kennedy who a judge described as an obsessive collector is not considered as sinister as some other importers. Customs officers regularly seize weapons and weapon parts that feed a thriving underworld black market.
In the past two weeks a Sydney man and a Brisbane man have been arrested trying to smuggle pistols.
In 2006-07, customs seized 6656 firearms, parts and accessories. The maximum penalty for illegally importing weapons is 10 years’ jail and a $275,000 fine.
And it’s becoming harder for people to get away with ordering illicit weapons online because customs works closely with eBay to monitor weapons traffic. EBay spokesman Daniel Feiler warns that the company has strict listing policies for weapons.
“We monitor the site very carefully for weapons that infringe Australian law,” Mr Feiler said.
“You would have to be a fool to either list or purchase an illegal weapon or on eBay from Australia because we work very closely with police and customs and pass on information.”
In evidence given during Kennedy ‘s sentencing in the Perth District Court, it was revealed he bought the bulletproof VIP armour vest on eBay from the Army Gear Shop in Houston for $U5321.98 in September 2006. He asked the store to send the vest in plain paper “as it is a present, don’t want to give it away”.
His other purchases included two defused army grenades from Florida, a grenade from Georgia, rubber bullets from Hampshire in England, a grenade from Oregon, a mini grenade launcher from Boston marked “mosquito moulds, toys”, a grenade from Minnesota, British Army desert body armour with two plates from Wiltshire marked “ceramic plate”, a rocket launcher and a pineapple grenade from Baden-Wurttemburg in Germany and a lemon grenade pineapple grenade from Nevada.
The Sunday Age attempted to contact Kennedy’s weapons suppliers last week but their email addresses had been shut down.
Kennedy, who has an obsessive compulsive disorder, denied any sinister plans for the weapons, claiming he was a collector with a passion for military paraphernalia.
Her says he has emptied his display cabinets of militaria, including grenades, at his home and now collects only Coca-Cola memorabilia.
Judge Philip Eaton said he accepted Kennedy was a collector despite prior convictions for illegal possession of a firearm, a silencer, drugs and unlicensed ammunition. “I’m a reasonably regular watcher of The Collectors on ABC television and people collect all manner of things, including pegs, for examples, passionately, and it becomes obsessive,” the judge said. “I think that’s part and parcel of…being an avid collector.”