RALEIGH -- Federal officials think a former Marine and Raleigh man used North Carolina as a home base for buying and smuggling dozens of firearms to England as part of an international scheme to avoid federal rules that govern how guns can be bought, sold and exported.
Steven Greenoe was stopped by federal agents Sunday at Raleigh-Durham International Airport trying to fly to Manchester, England, according to Tony Bell, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent who testified Thursday in federal court about the case. Greenoe holds residency status in England, and his wife lives overseas, according to statements made in court.
Greenoe is accused of unlawfully shipping firearms on an airline without notifying airline officials and without an export license, according to court documents. Bell said Greenoe admitted buying 70 firearms in the past five months and shipping them from Raleigh to England inside his checked luggage.
On Sunday, federal agents found 16 firearms and ammunition magazines that had been broken down and placed in Greenoe's checked luggage, Bell said. Greenoe said he had purchased the pistols to take back to England and sell to employees of his maritime security company, Jolie Rouge Group, which Greenoe said protects ships that travel through dangerous seas and are subject to pirate raids, Bell said.
But authorities in England think the weapons could have been sold on the black market, Bell said. Jane Jackson, a federal prosecutor, said in court Thursday that agents don't yet know where the firearms were going in England or who was buying them.
In a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday, Greenoe is accused of taking frequent trips to buy weapons in North Carolina and then illegally taking them in his luggage to England, where gun ownership is tightly regulated. At gun shops in Raleigh, Wendell, Asheboro and Concord, Greenoe used a concealed weapons permit that allowed him to instantly buy several guns, mostly Glock or Ruger 9 mm pistols, at once, Bell said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Webb ruled Thursday that Greenoe should remain in jail while the case is pending. Webb denied his lawyer's request that he be released to stay with his mother, a longtime Raleigh resident. Webb determined that Greenoe was a flight risk and a risk to the public.
Greenoe did not speak during the hearing. He grew up in Raleigh and served as an infantryman in the Marines before being medically discharged for an injured knee, according to statements in court by his mother, Mary Greenoe, and his lawyer.
Pistols were traced
He came to the attention of local federal agents when agents in the United Kingdom came across three guns bought by an undercover agent, Bell said. The guns, all Glock pistols, were traced to Greenoe, Bell said.
Guns bought in N.C.
Those guns all had the serial numbers removed, though forensic tests were able to detect the numbers and allow authorities to determine the guns had been bought days earlier in North Carolina, Bell said.
None of the weapons were declared to airline staff, as required when a person travels with a firearm in checked luggage in the United States, Bell said, and Greenoe didn't have the export license needed to take firearms out of the country, Bell said.
