Grenades next door? Small town N.C. raid reveals vast eBay trade in stolen military goods
Kerry Hughley’s story, like many true-crime dramas, starts with an explosive detail — grenades.
According to a document unsealed last week in Charlotte federal court, the Mint Hill man has been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with possession of explosive devices.
Actually, as the document reveals, federal authorities found 18 of them in a late February raid on Hughley’s home — from “Flashbang” stun grenades to seven Thermite incendiary models. The latter, considered to be one of the most destructive weapons in the U.S. military arsenal, can generate heat of up to 4,000 degrees.
How they made their way to the southeast corner of Mecklenburg County, the document doesn’t say. Related criminal filings in Raleigh and the New York federal courts, however, offer a number of clues — along with the federal allegation that the grenades are merely the detonators of a much bigger story.
They outline a highly lucrative, online black-market pipeline that authorities say ran from Hughley’s two-story, tree-shaded home to the gates of Fort Bragg, the most populous military installation in the world, and to buyers and sellers across the web. Nationally, the illicit trade in military supplies involves millions of dollars of taxpayer-purchased items that are often stolen and smuggled off military bases, including major installations in the Carolinas.
The trade is often worldwide. In 2016, for example, eight people — including six soldiers — were charged with stealing $1 million of sensitive military equipment, which prosecutors say they sold on eBay to buyers in Russia, China, Ukraine and Mexico, among other countries.
According to the New York documents, Mint Hill’s Hughley offered a diverse list of items for sale. The February raid on Hughley’s home, for example, uncovered detonation cords for plastic explosives, weapon sights, night-vision goggles and laser devices. Twenty military radios also were seized, including one high-security model that prosecutors say Hughley had offered to sell to an undercover agent for $500,000.
A smaller transaction, the alleged $3,000 sale of a stolen U.S. military night-vision device to an undercover agent in New York, led to an April indictment charging Hughley with conspiracy to steal and sell government property. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on $250,000 bond.
The 40-year-old Army veteran could not be reached for comment this week. A home phone number included in one of the filings in his case has been disconnected. His attorneys, Louis Freeman in New York and Kelly Johnson in Charlotte, did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Hughley’s case is scheduled to be back in New York federal court on Dec. 6.
To Bragg and back again
Operating under several aliases — “thermalsnthings” and “Hugo Tech” — that investigators say they traced back to his home address, Hughley ran his thriving business not on the so-called “Dark Web,” but openly on eBay and PayPal. His sales in military equipment eclipsed $700,000 over a two-year period leading up to his arrest, documents allege.
Special Agent Eric Maryea, an investigator with the Department of Defense, alleges in an affidavit filed in the New York case that Hughley advertised and sold hundreds of pieces of military equipment between 2016 and 2018. Many of the items sold were required by the Pentagon to be “rendered useless” before leaving government control.
Investigators say one of Hughley’s trading partners was Stratton “Mac” Beaubien, the owner of a Fayetteville military supply store, who also faces possible prosecution in New York in connection with the case.
The day after investigators descended on Hughley’s house, they raided Beaubien’s Red Horse Military Surplus, where they say they found thousands of pieces of military equipment — “some of which was confirmed stolen” — including mortar rounds, Russian-made assault rifles and mine-detection kits.
According to an affidavit filed in New York, Beaubien told investigators who searched his store that he buys some of his merchandise “knowing it comes from the base,” meaning Fort Bragg, which is about four miles from the store.
He also said Hughley paid him a “lot of money” for equipment Hughley buys. PayPal records showed 11 transactions between the two men totaling more than $111,000 over a year-and-half period in 2017-18, the affidavit says.
The alleged conspiracy deepens from there. Court documents say one of Beaubien’s suppliers was Bryan Allen, a Fort Bragg chief warrant officer who is now accused of rigging inventory records to steal $2 million in military equipment. The contraband included more than 40 pairs of night-vision goggles, which an affidavit in Allen’s case says the soldier tried to sell to Red Horse for $2,500 a pair.
“I got 4 with your name on them,” Allen said to Beaubien in a May 2018 text that investigators said they found on Beaubien’s cell phone.
Beaubien’s reply: “Sweet.”
Two weeks later, according to the affidavit, Allen sent another text: “Hey bro would you be interested in 10 more”.
Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh say Allen’s case is tied to at least two other theft rings at Fort Bragg. Those include the 2018 indictment of Scott Douglas Browning of Fayetteville, who was charged with being part of a conspiracy that used eBay to sell stolen military equipment to a buyer in the Netherlands. Browning was also accused of selling another $1.5 million of stolen materiel within the U.S., prosecutors say. He was ordered this summer to pay $1.85 million in restitution and placed on five years probation.
The flow of stolen equipment off N.C. military bases appears to be a longstanding problem. Consider:
▪ Late last year, a Fort Bragg soldier and his former superior officer were charged with filling a rented Chevy Tahoe with multiple firearms, plastic explosives and other military-grade equipment, which they intended to sell for $75,000, federal records show. Instead, they were arrested outside of El Paso by undercover Homeland Security agents, Newsweek reported. The investigation continues.
▪In 2016, a Fort Bragg supply sergeant, Christopher Mann, was sentenced to 20 months in prison and ordered to pay almost $1 million in restitution for stealing and selling food and military equipment that “his unit needed ... to train and carry out its mission,” prosecutors say. He sold them to a “civilian black market purchaser” in neighboring Fayetteville — 73-year-old Joe Horner — who was sent to prison for two years and ordered to pay restitution of almost $278,000.
▪ In 2014, an N.C. soldier pleaded guilty to taking bribes in return for helping steal 1 million gallons of gasoline for resale on the Afghanistan black market. Army Sgt. Christopher Ciampa’s “greed put his fellow soldiers at greater risk,” his federal prosecutor said at the time. “These actions, especially in a wartime environment, damage the reputation of all soldiers.”
▪ During 2016-18, two different theft rings made up of members of the U.S. Marines’ elite 3d Raider Battalion stole vehicle parts, tactical gear, flashlights and rifle parts at Camp Lejeune. Some of contraband was then sold to civilians living near the eastern N.C. Marine base.
According to Hughley’s indictment, the Mint Hill man’s arrest was triggered by a single transaction on an auspicious date: On July 4, 2018, he shipped a night-vision device — “that he knew belonged to and was stolen from the United States military” — to an address in Queens, N.Y.
Beaubien has not been formally charged, and his case file features a series of delays in his case — a possible sign that he is cooperating with prosecutors.
He told the Fayetteville Observer in April that his arrest was no big deal.
“It’s just part of being in business for military surplus,” he said. “It is what it is. I can’t really talk about it brother, but it’s not going to come out the way you think it is.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2019 at 3:58 PM.
