Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

DALLAS — Gary Busby, 65, formerly of Flower Mound, Texas, was sentenced this morning by U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay to 78 months in federal prison for his role in a conspiracy to illegally manufacture firearms that were sent to Mexico, announced U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox of the Northern District of Texas.

Busby was convicted in March 2017, following a two-week jury trial, on one count of conspiracy to manufacture firearms without a license and four counts of structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements. Judge Lindsay ordered Busby to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on March 6, 2018.

According to evidence presented at trial, over the course of 2010 and 2011, Busby manufactured hundreds of AR-15 and AK firearm receivers into fully functional firearms and made thousands of dollars doing so. Law enforcement found approximately fifty of these firearms. Some were recovered smuggled into Mexico while the rest were recovered by Mexican authorities.

Evidence also showed that from approximately December 2010 to September 2012, Busby purchased hundreds of postal money orders at dozens of post offices in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in an effort to hide the proceeds of his illegal firearm activity. Busby would only purchase two $1,000 money orders at a time at one post office, using cash, and would travel to up to six post offices in one day, purchasing $2,000 in money orders at each. Doing so, he was knowingly evading the federal reporting requirement for when a customer purchases $3,000 or more in money orders. In 2011 alone, Busby purchased approximately $236,000 in postal money orders, in order to hide the money made manufacturing firearms. Evidence presented to the jury showed that he knowingly structured these cash transactions.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate Rumsey and Criminal Chief Chad Meacham prosecuted.

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