Army Major Getting Fried For Illegally Shipping Guns To Ghana In Big Ole Buckets of Rice
A Fort Liberty Army Major was convicted of smuggling guns to Ghana in barrels of rice and home goods, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Dartey, who will be sentenced in July, could spend up to 20 years in prison.
According to court records and evidence, between June 28 and July 2, 2021, Dartley purchased seven firearms in the Fort Liberty area. He also asked a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to purchase three firearms there and send them to him in North Carolina, according to the DOJ.
According to the DOJ, "Dartey then hid all the firearms," which included "multiple handguns, an AR15, 50-round magazines, suppressors and a combat shotgun" inside blue barrels underneath rice and household goods and smuggled the barrels out of the Port of Baltimore, Maryland, on a container ship to Ghana.
Gotta admit, I dont hate the hustle. Everyone knows that military members are drastically underpaid for what they do. Lots of these folks are very skilled and are getting paid virtually peanuts comparatively to their civilian counterparts. So, what do you do in that situation, you improvise, adapt, and overcome.
Now, I don't know how you get into the smugglin biz but it seems easy enough. Grab a couple of barrels of rice and start chunking different types of weapons in there. Handguns. Rifles. Shotguns. Sub Machine guns, airsoft, mortars, grenades, patriot missile systems, nuclear weapons, military working dogs, soviet era dolphins, F-35s, C-130s, flame throwers or even aircraft carriers can be shipped all over the world with just a little bit of rice in a bucket. It is truly remarkable.
I would totally understand this story if it was from a junior enlisted person. The other day I was watching a tiktok and this fella was speaking before the judge at a custody hearing. He had abandoned his kid, which isn't really relevant here, so the mother was seeking child support. The gentleman reported to the judge that he made 2,200 dollars a month in base pay. 2200. Brother, if you're only getting 2,220 dollars a month, you should be able to sell whatever you can, including guns, to whomever you can. Everything is expensive as hell so if you need to flip some weapons to Ghana, fine by me.
I'd have more of a problem with it if he was selling guns here in the United States. Selling it to a different country? Eh. It's whatever. Do what you need to as long as it doesn't impact us here.
If you're in Ghana, you gotta find somewhere else to buy your guns from though. Those shipping costs would be outrageous and you gotta be a smarter business person than that. You cant be shipping that much weight internationally unless you got Portnoy Pockets.
Shop around a little be. See if you can get them guns on Amazon Prime because the delivery is gonna be extra otherwise with rice guns. I don't know what the cost is but it's gotta be in the hundreds if not a thousand dollars to ship from North Carolina to Ghana.
However, I will admit that having 70 bags of rice for free with your guns is a pretty good deal if you can get it. Last time I bought one, all I got was a free case smh.
