MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A dozen guns are on the street as a result of a cargo theft at the UPS sorting facility near the Memphis airport, according to Memphis Police. The boxes were en route to a merchant in Shreveport, Louisiana.
According to MPD, UPS was supposed to deliver 24 guns to Sports South LLC last week. But when the delivery got there, store employees realized half the guns were missing.
MPD valued the six guns stolen from the UPS sorting facility at nearly $7,000.
“I would be worried of course but I’m hoping packages are so easily tracked these days,” said Ashley Searcy, who works at a family-owner gun retailer in West Memphis.
WREG investigated this issue recently. We found out the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been looking into guns stolen from shipping hubs for years. They confirmed most of them were inside jobs.
“If you work there, you have an idea of what is in the packages sometime. You know where it’s coming from and where it is going,” said Marcos Bess with the ATF.
UPS released a statement to WREG about this case: “UPS works with law enforcement authorities for their investigations. We do not comment on open investigations and we do not disclose personnel information.”
But ATF officials said the shipping companies must do better to self-monitor.
“It would really be on them to perform better background checks and make sure employees are trustworthy because they’re not only dealing with our guns. They’re dealing with everyone’s everything,” Searcy said.
Memphis Police said they were looking in to several employees of a UPS contractor. They considered the theft an open investigation and said they’d update the public when more information became available.
