WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) \u2014 On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country\u2019s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least five senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI\u2019s first standalone office in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn\u2019t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn\u2019t have legally kept the gifts if they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment. <\/p>\n
All travelers to New Zealand are required to declare any guns or gun parts when entering the country, New Zealand’s border security agency confirmed Wednesday. The agency, Customs, wouldn’t disclose what declarations Patel made on arrival.<\/p>\n
Visitors must seek a license to possess a pistol on New Zealand soil. It wasn’t immediately clear if Patel had sought one.<\/p>\n
Inoperable weapons are treated as though they\u2019re operable in New Zealand if modifications could make them workable again. The pistols were judged by gun regulators to be potentially operable and were destroyed, New Zealand\u2019s Police Commissioner Richard Chambers told AP in a statement Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Chambers didn\u2019t specify how the weapons had been rendered inoperable before Patel gifted them. Usually this means the temporary disabling of the gun\u2019s firing mechanism.<\/p>\n
Three of New Zealand\u2019s most powerful law enforcement figures said they received the gifts at meetings on July 31. Chambers was one recipient, and the other two were Andrew Hampton, director-general of the country\u2019s human intelligence agency NZSIS, and Andrew Clark, director-general of the technical intelligence agency GCSB, according to a joint statement from their departments.<\/p>\n
Two senior elected officials, Police Minister Mark Mitchell and Judith Collins, minister responsible for the military and spy agencies, said Wednesday that Patel had given them pistols too.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the spy agencies described the gift as \u201ca challenge coin display stand\u201d that included the 3D-printed inoperable weapon \u201cas part of the design.\u201d The officials sought advice on the gifts the next day from the regulator that enforces New Zealand\u2019s gun laws, Chambers said. <\/p>\n
When the weapons were examined, it was discovered they were potentially operable. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo ensure compliance with firearms laws, I instructed Police to retain and destroy them,\u201d Chambers said. <\/p>\n
James Davidson, a former FBI agent who is now president of the FBI Integrity Project, a nonprofit that seeks to safeguard the bureau from undue partisan influence, has criticized Patel’s appointment.<\/p>\n
But Davidson said the gift of the replica pistols appeared \u201ca genuine gesture\u201d from Patel and their destruction was \u201cquite frankly, an overreaction by the NZSIS, which could have simply rendered the replica inoperable,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
3D-printed weapons are treated the same as other guns in New Zealand. The country bolstered its gun restrictions following a 2019 white supremacist attack on two mosques in the city of Christchurch, when 51 Muslim worshippers were shot dead by an Australian man who had amassed a cache of semiautomatic weapons legally.<\/p>\n
The guns Patel gifted to the law enforcement chiefs were not semiautomatic models now prohibited after the Christchurch massacre. But there are a suite of other reasons New Zealanders might not legally be able to possess certain weapons, including the specific permits required for pistols. <\/p>\n
New Zealand doesn\u2019t have a passionate culture of gun ownership and the weapons have been viewed more dimly since the mass shooting. Gun ownership is enshrined in New Zealand law as a privilege, not a right.<\/p>\n
The country isn\u2019t short on guns; they\u2019re common in rural areas for pest control. But violent gun crime is rare and many urban residents might never have even seen a firearm in person.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s uncommon even to see police officers carrying weapons. Front-line officers aren\u2019t usually armed on patrol and leave their weapons locked in their vehicles.<\/p>\n
News of Patel\u2019s visit caused ripples in New Zealand at the time because the opening of the new FBI office in Wellington wasn\u2019t divulged to news outlets or the public until it had already happened. An FBI statement in July said the move aligned New Zealand with FBI missions in other Five Eyes intelligence-sharing nations, which also include the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
The office would provide a local mission for FBI staff who have operated with oversight from Canberra, Australia, since 2017, the statement said.<\/p>\n
Public records disclosed to local news outlets this month revealed that Patel met with and dined with more than a dozen senior public servants and elected officials, including Cabinet ministers, during his visit. It wasn\u2019t immediately clear how many officials received the pistols as gifts. <\/p>\n
Patel had already provoked mild diplomatic discomfort in Wellington by suggesting in remarks supplied to reporters that the new FBI office aimed to counter China\u2019s influence in the South Pacific Ocean, where New Zealand is located. The comments prompted polite dismissal from officials in Wellington, who said the bolstered FBI presence was primarily to collaborate on child exploitation and drug smuggling crimes. Beijing decried Patel\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Mustian reported from New York. Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker contributed from Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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