FBI boss Kash Patel gave New Zealand officials 3D-printed guns illegal to possess under local laws

WELLINGTON: On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.
The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.
Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.
It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.
The pistols were surrendered and destroyed
Inoperable weapons are treated as though they’re operable in New Zealand if modifications could make them workable again. The pistols were judged by gun regulators to be potentially operable and were destroyed, New Zealand’s Police Commissioner Richard Chambers told AP in a statement Tuesday.
Chambers didn’t specify how the weapons had been rendered inoperable before Patel gifted them. Usually this means the temporary disabling of the gun’s firing mechanism.
Three of New Zealand’s most powerful law enforcement figures said they received the gifts at meetings July 31. Chambers was one recipient, and the other two were Andrew Hampton, Director-General of the country’s human intelligence agency NZSIS, and Andrew Clark, Director-General of the technical intelligence agency GCSB, according to a joint statement from their departments.
A spokesperson for the spy agencies described the gift as “a challenge coin display stand” that included the 3D-printed inoperable weapon “as part of the design.” The officials sought advice on the gifts the next day from the regulator that enforces New Zealand’s gun laws, Chambers said.
When the weapons were examined, it was discovered they were potentially operable.
“To ensure compliance with firearms laws, I instructed Police to retain and destroy them,” Chambers said.
James Davidson, a former FBI agent who is now president of the FBI Integrity Project, a nonprofit that seeks to safeguard the bureau from undue partisan influence, has criticized Patel’s appointment.
But Davidson said the gift of the replica pistols appeared “a genuine gesture” from Patel and their destruction was “quite frankly, an overreaction by the NZSIS, which could have simply rendered the replica inoperable,” he said.
New Zealand has strong gun controls
3D-printed weapons are treated the same as other guns in New Zealand. The country bolstered its gun restrictions following a 2019 white supremacist attack on two mosques in the city of Christchurch, when 51 Muslim worshipers were shot dead by an Australian man who had amassed a cache of semiautomatic weapons legally.
The guns Patel gifted to the law enforcement chiefs were not semiautomatic models now prohibited after the Christchurch massacre. But there are a suite of other reasons New Zealanders might not legally be able to possess certain weapons, including the specific permits required for pistols.
New Zealand doesn’t have a passionate culture of gun ownership and the weapons have been viewed more dimly since the mass shooting. Gun ownership is enshrined in New Zealand law as a privilege, not a right.
The country isn’t short on guns; they’re common in rural areas for pest control. But violent gun crime is rare and many urban residents might never have even seen a firearm in person.
It’s uncommon even to see police officers carrying weapons. Front-line officers aren’t usually armed on patrol and leave their weapons locked in their vehicles.
Patel caused discomfort with China remarks
News of Patel’s visit caused ripples in New Zealand at the time because the opening of the new FBI field office in Wellington wasn’t divulged to news outlets or the public until it had already happened. An FBI statement in July said the move aligned New Zealand with FBI missions in other Five Eyes intelligence-sharing nations, which also include the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The office would provide a local mission for FBI staff who have operated with oversight from Canberra, Australia, since 2017, the statement said.
Public records disclosed to local news outlets this month revealed that Patel met with and dined with a more than a dozen senior public servants and elected officials, including Cabinet ministers, during his visit. It wasn’t immediately clear Tuesday how many officials received the pistols as gifts.
Patel had already provoked mild diplomatic discomfort in Wellington by suggesting in remarks supplied to reporters that the new FBI office aimed to counter China’s influence in the South Pacific Ocean, where New Zealand is located. The comments prompted polite dismissal from officials in Wellington, who said the bolstered FBI presence was primarily to collaborate on child exploitation and drug smuggling crimes. Beijing decried Patel’s remarks.

KALININGRAD: Standing in the center of rainy Kaliningrad, the isolated Russian exclave surrounded by NATO countries, Russian factory worker Alexander felt confident.
Economically hit by being cut-off from its EU neighbors and physically isolated from the rest of Russia, officials and locals are putting on a brave face amid claims they are under siege from neighbors Poland and Lithuania.
The Baltic states surrounding Kaliningrad, all NATO members, have been some of Ukraine’s staunchest backers since Moscow launched its offensive in February 2022.
Poland and Lithuania “want to show off, display their strength, reinforce their borders,” said Alexander, 25, who did not give his surname.
But his city is “certainly not one that surrenders,” he added, taking pride that Russia had far more weapons than its smaller neighbors.
His defiance echoes the Kremlin’s relentless criticism of NATO.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has for years accused the military alliance of breaking an apparent promise not to expand eastwards.
In June, he said Russians had been “tricked, duped on the subject of NATO’s non-expansion.”
Ukraine and the West reject that narrative as a pretext advanced by Putin to justify the offensive, which has become Europe’s largest conflict since World War II.
In Russia’s neighbors, the intensity of the confrontation is palpable.
Poland and Lithuania, which have a land border with Kaliningrad, have virtually closed their borders for Russians, bar limited exceptions.
In recent weeks, Estonia and Lithuania have reported Russian jets violating their airspace.
And Poland’s new president Karol Nawrocki said he believed Russia was “ready to hit at other countries” after NATO scrambled jets to shoot down Russian drones flying through Polish airspace.

- ‘Let them bark’ -

Kaliningrad — a previously German city called Konigsberg until it became Soviet after WWII — is strategic for Moscow.
It is home to Russia’s Baltic Fleet, as well as Iskander ballistic missiles, the same kind that Moscow regularly fires on Ukraine.
The region’s governor did not respond to an AFP request for an interview.
The Kremlin’s hard-line messages run deep with many.
Marina, a 63 year-old who works in a clothes shop, mocked the region’s EU neighbors, saying they should focus on their own problems.
“Let them bark,” she said. “I am 100 percent protected in Kaliningrad. I am not scared of NATO.”
Showing Russian tourists round the tomb of philosopher Immanuel Kant, guide Anna Dmitrik was relieved that Kaliningrad had not been targeted by the Ukrainian retaliatory drone attacks that have hit many other regions.
“It’s calm here. We are not scared for now,” she said, adding: “I don’t know what will happen next.”
Still, reminders of the war are everywhere.
Banners encouraged men to sign up to fight in Ukraine for Russia’s “victorious army.” Giant Zs — the symbol of Moscow’s forces in Ukraine — decorated buildings.

- ‘Life was better then’ -

But behind the defiance, Kaliningrad’s locals struggled with the feeling of being more isolated, and worse off, than before February 2022.
Banned from EU airspace, planes connecting the exclave to the rest of Russia must take a long detour northwards via the Gulf of Finland.
A train linking it to Moscow is physically sealed as it crosses Lithuania, with Russian passengers requiring a visa or transit permit to board.
And Vilnius has closed its border with key Russian ally Belarus for at least a month over the intrusion of balloons carrying thousands of illegal cigarettes into the EU state.
Before “you could go to Poland to shop or just take a walk. Buses and trucks were running,” said mechanic Vitaly Tsypliankov, 48.
“Life was better then,” he added.
“Now everything is closed. Everything is more expensive, absolutely everything has become costlier.”
Inflation has surged across Russia amid the Ukraine offensive, but complicated logistics hit Kaliningrad especially hard.
While Poland’s border is technically open, only Russians with EU residency can enter. Traffic into the country has virtually stopped.
Most petrol stations near the border are empty if not shut down.
The giant Baltia shopping mall, on the road to the airport, is sparsely frequented.
“Kaliningrad’s economic situation is very bad,” said Irina, a saleswoman there.
“Logistics are very complicated to bring in products from (the rest of) Russia,” she said, puffing on a cigarette.
“Everything is more expensive.”

FBI boss Kash Patel gave New Zealand officials 3D-printed guns illegal to possess under local laws