LAS VEGAS -- A Navy SEAL will spend the next 17 years behind bars for his role in a scheme to sell Iraqi machine guns for his own profit. The case of Nicholas Bickle has all the drama and intrigue of a Hollywood blockbuster yet it also raises questions about the flow of illegal weapons from the battlefield.
It isn't entirely clear how more than 70 firearms, including some 30 machine guns, got from the Middle East to the United States. Prosecutors believe Nicholas Bickle smuggled the weapons from Iraq where he was last deployed as a Navy SEAL. The undercover investigation into his crimes spanned several cities, including Las Vegas, San Diego and Chicago, where Bickle was playing a different kind of hero. The real-life Navy SEAL had a small acting role in the movie Transformers 3.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms led the investigation which netted more than 70 guns, including 33 factory-made machine guns, all smuggled from Iraq.
"When we found out it was a Navy SEAL that was doing this we were all pretty shocked," said ATF Special Agent Erick Fox.
During a series of undercover weapons purchases, Metro Detective Noe Larios initially buys from convicted co-conspirators Omar Aguirre and Andy Kaufman of Las Vegas.
Between July and August of 2010, Larios spent more than $10,000 on four AK-47 style machine guns and five pistols. Some of the weapons bore the mark of the Iraqi military.
"My ultimate goal, was me as law enforcement, be the person that purchased these firearms," said Larios. "So they wouldn't get into the hands of criminals and people that could endanger our families, the residents of Las Vegas, or this country."
Aguirre and Kaufman introduced Larios to Rick Paul, Bickle's childhood friend in Colorado. Paul testified, that at Bickle's direction, he sold Larios an additional dozen machine guns without regard for what this virtual stranger intended to do with them. Paul told Larios to say he had got them at a gun show, if anyone asked.
During the final undercover purchase, Paul acknowledged that a Navy Seal (Bickle) was getting the weapons.
Investigators further linked Bickle to the conspiracy with bank records, text messages, and search warrants of his San Diego home and storage unit. Among the items recovered was a footlocker with a false bottom. Paul testified Bickle used it to smuggle some of the weapons, including an AK-47 he gave to filmmaker Peter Berg as a gift, in March of 2009. That transaction happened more than a year before Bickle's own acting debut in Transformers 3.
"This investigation has a lot of sensational points in it, that's true," said ATF Special Agent in Charge Tom Chittum. "It doesn't change the fact, that at the end of the day, this was an investigation of the illegal sale of machine guns onto American streets,"
Bickle's attorney did not return the I-Team's phone calls, however he reportedly plans to appeal his conviction. Bickel's trial lawyer told the jury that his co-defendants were the real bad guys in the smuggling scheme. All of them pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Bickle.
Nicholas Bickle
Nicholas Bickle on the left in the movie Transformers 3.
