US court jails American for smuggling Glock pistols and parts into the UAE

Randy Lew Williams, a former volunteer fighter in Iraq, was trying to direct weapons to Kurdish Peshmerga units fighting ISIS

Randy Lew Williams pictured in a social media post. He was jailed for three years for trying to send weapons to Kurdish fighters in Iraq, via the UAE.

An American who attempted to smuggle firearms to Iraq via the UAE was sentenced to three years in a US prison.

In 2018, Randy Lew Williams sent a package containing multiple unlicensed Glock pistols and firearms parts to the Emirates.

The package was addressed to the city of Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdish region of Iraq, and was sent with the intention of helping Kurdish fighters battling ISIS, the court heard.

"On June 1, 2020, Williams was charged with violating the Arms Export Control Act, making a false statement to a firearms dealer and possession of an unregistered firearm," the US Attorney Office in the Western District of Oklahoma, said on Wednesday.

"According to court records, the FBI Legal Attache in Abu Dhabi notified the FBI Oklahoma City Field Division that a FedEx shipment had been seized by UAE authorities in Dubai."

Williams spent time in Iraq in 2015, according to his lawyer, and had agreed to send guns after fighting with the Kurdish Peshmerga against ISIS, The Oklahoman reported.

It was not stated in court how the weapons and weapons parts would have been sent from UAE to Iraq.

Williams did not have a US firearms licence. He was arrested in March of last year in the US and pleaded guilty three months later to all three charges against him.

“The atrocities I saw were horrible,” he said at his sentencing in Oklahoma City federal court.

“I wish I had said, ‘No,’ but I didn’t. I felt obligated to help them out.”

He will serve 40 months in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release on each count when his prison term ends.

“We have to respect and abide by the rule of law in this country,” said US District Judge Jodi Dishman, who sentenced Williams.

“You, however, took the law into your own hands.”

15 of the world's bizarre smuggling attempts - in pictures 

US Customs arrested this Fly Jamaica Airways cabin crew attendant, who was found to have 4kg of cocaine strapped to his legs and concealed under tights and trousers. The haul at New York's JFK Airport would have been worth about $160,000 on the street. Photo: US Customs and Border Protection

Police in Bogata, Colombia arrested this Canadian woman for trying to smuggle 2kg of cocaine on to a Canada-bound flight in September, 2013. The woman pretended to be pregnant and hid the drugs in a latex belly. AFP

This spectacularly conspicuous attempt to smuggle €30,000 of cocaine ended in arrest for a Colombian passenger in July, 2019. The man, 65, concealed one kilo of the illicit powder by gluing it to his head. He was caught when police noticed the height of his black toupee, when his flight from Bogota landed in Barcelona. Photo: Policia Nacional

Australian customs officers foiled this attempt to smuggle the party drug ecstasy into the country, concealed in a Mr Potato Head toy. Officers at Sydney International Mail Centre cracked open the Toy Story figurine and found 293g of the drug in October, 2007. AFP

Portuguese police released this image of multicoloured swim trunks with two brown rubber bags — supposed to look like buttocks — attached. The passenger who was wearing them was caught at the airport in Lisbon, off a flight from Belem in northern Brazil in February 2018. The fake buttocks contained enough cocaine for 5,000 doses. Photo: Portuguese National Police

Guatemalan smugglers were found to have scooped out the cream filling of dozens of vanilla wafers and replaced it with wraps of cocaine. US Customs and Border Protection arrested the Guatemalan passenger carrying them at George Bush Airport in Houston in April 2015. The nearly 2 kilos of cocaine would have a street value of more than $60,000. AP

Few airports in the world will let you through security without removing your shoes, due to the threat from terrorism and to tackle drug smuggling. Australian Customs discovered nearly half a kilo of heroin in the hollowed out soles of these shoes. AFP

Customs officers at Dubai's main airport foiled 155 attempts to smuggle 'talismans and black magic items', related to witchcraft and sorcery, in 2015. Officers said criminals take advantage of often vulnerable people with superstitions. Photo: Dubai Customs

In August 2019, 755kg of methamphetamine was found hidden under frozen cow hide from Mexico. The crystal meth was wrapped in aluminium foil and sandwiched among 18 pallets of hide that arrived in Sydney aboard a shipping container marked 'Salty Bovine Skin'. AFP

Crystal meth wraps are removed from inside hollowed out hardwood flooring at a warehouse in near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in April, 2017. The haul had been shipped from China and had a street value of $681m. AFP

London-based seafood salesman Gilbert Khoo was sentenced to jail at a British court in March, 2020 for smuggling live 'glass eels' to Hong Kong. He was caught with 200kg and the total haul between 2015 and 2017 was worth about $69m. Photo: National Crime Agency

Khoo, pictured holding two pieces of gold, was arrested after Border Force officers seized a consignment at Heathrow Airport. Photo: National Crime Agency

Dubai Police released this image of drugs in a hollowed out book. It was part of a consignment of two tonnes of drugs of various types. A multinational police operation tackled criminal activities related to drug smuggling and trafficking in Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Austria in November 2017. Photo: Dubai Police

A passenger tried to smuggle a whole roasted hog from Peru to Atlanta in November, 2016, for Thanksgiving. US Customs staff seized the hidden pig, which is banned by laws designed to prevent foot and mouth disease and swine fever. Photo: US Customs and Border Protection

Drugs are hidden inside a microwave as seizures are displayed at Dubai Airport in July 2019. Chris Whiteoak / The National

One of the largest drug busts in Dubai's history was made at Jebel Ali Port in May 2019. Sniffer dogs alerted officers to a shipment that was found to contain 5.7 million Captagon pills. Photo: Dubai Police

Captagon is a type of amphetamine originally used for attention deficit disorders, but was banned in the 1980s due to its highly addictive nature. Smugglers in Syria have thrived during the chaos of the war there, and many shipments have been traced to the Arab state. Photo: Dubai Police