A Windsor man has been indicted in Denver’s federal court on numerous gun-smuggling charges after prosecutors allege he hid parts for assault rifles in toy cars and shipped them to buyers around the world including in Saudi Arabia and Cambodia.
In one such deal, Michael John Suppes, 45, is accused of agreeing to sell 30 AR-15 rifles and 20 AK-47 rifles with illegal 10-inch barrels to a federal agent posing as a Juarez, Mexico, gun buyer, according to U.S. District Court records.
Most of the guns were shipped by Suppes’ Fort Collins company, Toy Liquidators, to locals in South Africa, Cambodia, Mexico, India and Australia, the records show.
The eight-count indictment filed in the Denver federal court Tuesday accuses Suppes of illegally exporting gun parts around the world in violation of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act. Suppes is also accused of illegally manufacturing and dealing firearms and possessing banned short-stock barrels for automatic weapons.
Suppes was arrested on Interstate 25 near Firestone on the morning of May 30 while carrying 50 boxes of AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles and ammunition in his white Toyota pickup truck worth $82,000, according to the indictment filed by U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn’s office.
He told an undercover agent he could make gun parts in a large shop in his home, according to court records. One of the guns was customized with the colors of the Mexican flag, the records said.in Aligarh, India, containing remote-controlled toy cars with Glock handgun parts tightly packed inside them, according to court records.
Over the next eight months, agents from the San Francisco Anti-Terrorism/Contraband Enforcement Team to investigators with Homeland Security in New York City carried on an undercover operation in which they seized scores of toy packages filled with gun parts.
Through Stamps.com, agents identified more than 1,200 domestic and international shipments linked to Suppes’ email addresses between January 2015 and November 2018, the records show. He allegedly shipped the items through fictitious, unlicensed business names including 1st Strike Tactical and Toys-N-Games, the court records said.
Suppes also had sold more than 6,000 items on eBay to buyers from around the world, including firearm parts such as the Glock Lower Parts Kit, court records said.
One parcel bearing a Fort Collins return address from Suppes’ office under the fictitious business name Clothing Warehouse Inc. contained three .223-caliber rifle barrels concealed in metal shoe racks bound for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according to court records. Federal agents used X-ray machines to confirm gun parts were concealed in toys, the records said.
Posing as an illegal gun buyer, a federal agent told Suppes that he wanted to buy and smuggle firearm parts in bulk to Guadalajara, Mexico.
Payments would be made through Money Gram, the court records said. Agents intercepted numerous parcels containing weapons parts concealed in remote-controlled cars from Suppes to buyers around the world, including to a pharmacy in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Seventy parcels linked to Suppes were shipped from Long Beach, Calif. to a Mr. You Samnang in Cambodia, the records said.
