{"id":14190,"date":"2016-04-08T08:00:42","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=14190"},"modified":"2016-04-08T08:00:42","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T13:00:42","slug":"modern-crime-illegal-online-arms-trade-in-north-africa-skyrocketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/08\/modern-crime-illegal-online-arms-trade-in-north-africa-skyrocketing\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern Crime: Illegal Online Arms Trade in North Africa Skyrocketing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"libya1\"<\/p>\n

An online marketplace for illicit weapons is <\/strong>thriving in the Middle East and North Africa, according to\u00a0a study<\/a>\u00a0released today that found sales of heavy machine guns, rocket and grenade launchers, and anti-aircraft guns on private\u00a0Facebook groups in Libya<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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During his 40-year reign, colonel Muammar Gaddafi stockpiled an estimated\u00a0$30 billion worth of weapons<\/a>. At the time, the arms trade was strictly regulated and the country had limited access to the internet. (Libya is still the only country where connection speed is on average\u00a0less than 1.0 Mbp<\/a>.) Since his overthrow and death in 2011, those weapons have been flooding into the local marketplace, and increasingly finding their way\u00a0online.<\/p>\n

The Small Arms Survey, an independent research project that monitors arms sales, believes this trade via social media started in 2013 and is still growing. Sellers posted photos of their wares in groups like the \u201cLibyan Firearms Market\u201d (now taken down). Heavy machine guns went for an average of 8,125 Libyan dinar ($5,900), rocket launchers for 9,000 Libyan dinar, and an anti-aircraft system, the Russian-made ZPU<\/span>-2, got offers for 85,000 Libyan dinar, or\u00a0$62,000.<\/p>\n

\"Libya2\"<\/p>\n

Most of the weapons being sold were guns, including Kalashinov rifles (around 8,000 Libyan dinars) and handguns. Sellers often did not set a price in their ad, and preferred to negotiate over the phone or in private messages, but researchers were able to document average\u00a0prices.<\/p>\n

The research group recorded 1,346 sales over the course of the last 18 months and found between\u00a0250 and 300 sales posts<\/a>\u00a0went up each month. The researchers believes this figure is just a fraction of the total arms trade taking place on social media in the\u00a0region.<\/p>\n

\"Libya3\"<\/p>\n

Most of the sales appeared to take place in larger Libyan cities like Tripoli and Benghazi. Sellers and buyers were mostly militia or individuals buying items for self defense. Facebook groups ranged from\u00a0400 to 14,000<\/a>\u00a0members, according to theBBC<\/span>, which was able to look at some of the groups before they were shut down by the social media\u00a0giant.<\/p>\n

Facebook has\u00a0taken down six groups<\/a>\u00a0identified as arms marketplaces, according to the New York Times. Since January, the social media platform\u00a0has banned<\/a>\u00a0individuals or companies from facilitating sales of private arms on its\u00a0network.<\/p>\n

Read the Original Article at Defense One<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An online marketplace for illicit weapons is thriving in the Middle East and North Africa, according to\u00a0a study\u00a0released today that found sales of heavy machine guns, rocket and grenade launchers, and anti-aircraft guns on private\u00a0Facebook groups in Libya. During his 40-year reign, colonel Muammar Gaddafi stockpiled an estimated\u00a0$30 billion worth of weapons. At the time,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2711,2417,2413,2933,2820,3986,1898],"tags":[10999,2779,11000,11001,11002],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}