SHARE

By of the

A Wauwatosa man is under federal investigation for selling guns without a proper license, buying more than 500 firearms from an outdoors store and then selling them through a website or at gun shows, according to newly unsealed court documents.

The guns, primarily used firearms, were purchased from 13 Gander Mountain stores across Wisconsin and sold through the website Gunbroker, according to a search warrant unsealed in federal court in Milwaukee last week.

The suspect, who is 60, recruited Gander Mountain employees to watch for used firearms and call him when they came into the store, according to the affidavit. He paid the employees a kickback for the referrals, it said.

The suspect, who is not being named because he has not been arrested or charged, could not be reached for comment through email or phone messages.

The case remains open, according to Martin Siebenaler, spokesman with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is investigating the matter.

Siebenaler said he was unable to comment further because it is an ongoing investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Honrath, who is handling the case for the U.S. attorney's office in Milwaukee, declined to comment.

Dealing guns without a license is a federal crime, but such cases are rare and time-consuming for federal agents to prove. Agents have to show that selling guns is a "principal objective of livelihood and profit" for a person. If someone is engaged in the business, he or she must obtain a federal firearms license, which requires the seller to perform background checks on gun sales.

The law does not require that background checks be done by individuals who privately sell a gun to another person. Individuals have used this private sale exception to sell firearms at gun shows.

In an effort to crack down on rogue gun sales, President Barack Obama in January directed the ATF to step up scrutiny of people selling guns without a license along with other efforts intended to address gun violence. Those efforts are being challenged by the gun rights lobby and its supporters in Congress.

According to the search warrant, the suspect obtained a collector of curio and relics license in 2014 from the ATF. The license allows the sale of guns that are at least 50 years old but does not allow the holder to be a general firearms dealer.

Records obtained by the ATF show the suspect has bought 531 guns from Gander Mountain from 2003 to 2015, spending nearly $170,000 on the guns; 513 of the guns were used. Some 428 of the guns were purchased from 2010 to early 2015, records show.

A Gander Mountain store manager said the suspect has been using a $25-off-for-every-$100-spent coupon for eight years.

The coupon mistakenly was printed without an expiration date and can be used repeatedly, the manager said. It's unclear why the store allows the coupon to be used over and over.

The ATF agents found he had 487 transactions for guns and accessories through a website called Gunbroker.

The site is an online auction for gun sales. It is unclear from the search warrant if there were background checks performed on the sales made. Gunbroker directs buyers to use a federal firearms license holder to broker the sale, adding, "For most firearms, the buyer must be able to pass a background check."

According to the search warrant, ATF agents found several circumstances where the suspect sold guns through Gunbroker, making a profit from $69 to $380 per gun. Records from Gander Mountain and Gunbroker show the suspect sold four guns in a one-week period in December 2014, earning $673 in profits.

The search warrant sought to search the email records of the suspect. ATF agents obtained the records in May 2015. The warrant was sealed in June 2015 for six months and that expired last week.