Military Vehicles, December 1996,: Re: Vintage Power Wagons and Surplus Entprizes

Re: Vintage Power Wagons and Surplus Entprizes

Gale Barrows (barrowsg@rapidnet.com)
Mon, 23 Dec 1996 22:04:57 -0700 (MST)

>I just recieved my latest issue of Supply Line in the mail.It has the
>article on the Wisconsin mv thefts from Fort McCoy. It now seems that
>Dave Butler from VPW and George Pretty of Surplus Enterprizes are
>involved in this investigation. Has anyone talked to them? Whats the
>latest on this? It seems like this is becoming a widening investigation
>by the FBI.
>Rick
>
>
Involved in the investigation does not mean involved in any criminal
activities.
The main outfit involved in the Mc Coy thefts (might embezzelment be a
better word)
is/was big enough that their activities of day to day bussiness involved
perhaps most of the active dealers in the surplus vehicle bussiness. Say an
M880 pickup came to outfit "T" thru less than normal methods. They might
trade it to outfit "S" for something "S" had without "s" knowing anything
was wrong. The "S" trades it to "V" for something "V" has aquired. "V" might
then trade it to "D" and "D" to "A". All this time everybody but "T" thought
the M880 was legaly obtained by "T". This trading from dealer to dealer is
common in military vehicles as it is in many other commodities and a vehicle
may have been in the hnds of 5-6 dealers before a private party buys it and
puts it to work. In an investigation of "T", all subsequent holders of the
equipment obtained illegaly will naturaly be investigated to see if they did
or did not have knowledge of any illegalitys. This investigation is also
aimed at seeing how many other pieces of equipment may also have been
obtained illegaly by "T".
My personal; experiences along this line stem from a dealer who bought a
batch of M151A2's with the contract stipulation that he could take the
vehicles to his home yard and do the required mutilation there. The dealer
got greedy and tried a switch of data plates by taking data plates from the
good vehicles and putting them on vehicles already crushed and then telling
the inspectors that the previously crushed vehicles were the ones he was
supposed to mutilate. This would leave him with nice vehicles bearing the id
of the previously crushed rigs to sell. And there were 80 vehicles in this
batch, quite a pile of cash if he could sell rigs he had about $100 in
(mainly trucking from Georgia to Missouri) for $4-5,000. At any rate, he got
caught, and then it was through his stupidity, and wound up with 6-7
warrants for defrauding Uncle Sam. I had bought a M151A2 from him previousy
and registered it useing a bill of sale from him as proof of ownership.
Naturaly, this vehicle came to
the attention of federal investigators on checking records of state vehicle
registrations where his name was involved. I never saw them but heard thru
the local sherriff that FBI and CID agents had been chewcking me and my
M151A2 out. Now this truck had been crushed properly (I had driven it up to
be crushed and had prepared it for mutilating) and it obviously had been
crushed as the body was coyote ugly even aftert I got it back on the road.
(the only unbent body parts are the hood and grill as they had been removed
prior to mutilating)The only way I had found out about this checking of my
particular truck was that in going over the records of all the M151A2's this
guy had in his yard (and there were 6-700 smashed hulks there)and of the
records from the DRMO's, my truck was mentioned by my name and it's serial
number as having been visualy checked and cleared as having been mutilated.
The investigators even mentioned the words "SAT CONG" (Vietnamese for "kill
communists) I had painted on the hood sides. And they had photos of my truck !!!