Gary Busby, Conspiracy to Manufacture Firearms without License, Texas 2011

DALLAS — A federal jury has convicted Gary Busby, 63, formerly of Flower Mound, Texas, on one count of conspiracy to manufacture firearms without a license and four counts of structuring transactions to evade reporting requirements, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.

The conviction stems from a one-week trial before U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay. Busby was found guilty of manufacturing hundreds of AR-15 and AK firearm receivers into fully functional firearms, making thousands of dollars in the process. Law enforcement found approximately fifty of those firearms as they were being smuggled into or recovered in Mexico.

According to evidence presented to the jury, Busby sold firearms to an individual at a gun show in December 2010, knowing he did not have federal firearms licenses. He agreed to manufacture AR-15 and AK stripped receivers into fully functional firearms in a series of transactions until December 2011. At some point during that period, Busby became aware that the firearms he was manufacturing, and the firearms he agreed to manufacture, had and would be sent to Mexico.

Authorities discovered that Busby had lied on ATF forms related to firearm purchases, stating that he was the actual buyer of the receiver, knowing that he would sell or trade that receiver to third parties. The government also presented evidence showing that from approximately December 2010 to September 2012, Busby purchased hundreds of postal money orders at dozens of post offices in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in an effort to hide the proceeds of his illegal firearm activity.

According to investigators, Busby would purchase two $1,000 money orders at a time at one post office, using cash, and would travel to up to six post offices in one day, purchasing $2,000 in money orders at each. Doing so, he was knowingly evading the federal reporting requirement for when a customer purchases $3,000 or more in money orders. In 2011 alone, Busby purchased approximately $236,000 in postal money orders, in order to hide the money made manufacturing firearms.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate Rumsey and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham are in charge of the prosecution.

Busby’s actions came to light after a search of his residence in July 2011, where federal agents catalogued all the firearms and ammunition at the residence. That same day, Busby signed a letter putting him on notice that he was to cease and desist in engaging in the business of selling firearms without a license and advising him that several of the firearms he had sold had been recovered during criminal activities.

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