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US staff sergeant sentenced for smuggling arms to China
Staff Reporter 2012-09-11 12:04 (GMT+8)



Chinese police show the firearms they seized from the smugglers. (Photo/Xinhua)

Joe Debose, a staff sergeant from the US Army National Guard, is likely to face six years in prison after he admitted to smuggling weapons to China from New York, reports the state-run China News Service.

Debose was arrested by the FBI on May 20 in Sanford, North Carolina for sending firearms, including nine pistols and parts of assault rifles, through UPS packages to Shanghai last August.

After Wang Ting, the Chinese buyer of those weapons, was arrested by local police, a huge smuggling network ranging from Beijing, Tianjin and Jilin in the north to Guangdong in the south was destroyed by the Chinese authorities.

About 93 US-made firearms and 500 bullets were seized while 23 people were arrested, according to a New York Times report on June 12.

With information provided by the Chinese government, the FBI was able to hunt down Debose, as well as Lin Zhifu and Li Lilan, his two Chinese middlemen living in the United States.

Reports from the World Journal, a newspaper run by overseas Chinese, stated that about 12 guns were also seized by the US authorities. Lin and Li will face similar penalties to Debose.