U.S. Marine in California accused of stealing, selling missile systems in Arizona

A 23-year-old U.S. Marine formerly stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County is in custody after federal investigators claim he was stealing weapons of war, transporting them to Arizona and selling them.

A Glendale, Arizona native, Corporal Andrew Paul Amarillas, was working as an ammunition technician specialist at the School Infantry-West at Camp Pendleton, where he had access to restricted military weapons, explosives and ammunition.

In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona last week, a grand jury indicted the 23-year-old, alleging he stole a Javelin missile system and cans of ammunition that he then sold to a network of co-conspirators, the news outlet AZFamily first reported.

Court documents referenced text messages Amarillas reportedly sent to his unindicted co-conspirators.

“[J]ust got some javs and some other ones,” he allegedly wrote in an August text. “Have 2 launchers that [I] think you’d like, if you want to take a look tomorrow.”

Undercover officers were able to buy some of the ammunition from the middlemen and trace some of it back to Camp Pendleton, where they said some of the lot numbers were signed out by the corporal.

While investigators said that at least one of the Javelin Missile Systems Amarillas planned to sell was recovered, along with some of the stolen ammunition, prosecutors noted in paperwork to keep the corporal in custody that as many as “2 million rounds of M855” ammunition could be unaccounted for, AZFamily reported.

Portable anti-tank weapons designed exclusively for the U.S. military by Lockheed Martin and RTX Corp, Javelin Missile Systems are also used to target low flying helicopters and other fortifications.

Unless demilitarized, the weapons cannot be legally possessed by or sold to the public, which in this case, they weren’t, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The 23-year-old was arrested ahead of completing an eight-week training course in Quantico, Virginia that would have then deployed him to protect the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar.

He pleaded not guilty to charges that included conspiracy to commit theft and embezzlement of government property and possession and sale of stolen ammunition at a federal courthouse in Phoenix on March 26, The Times reported.

The judge said that because he presented a flight risk and had the potential to tamper with evidence and possibly interfere with witnesses at Camp Pendleton that he should be held without bail.