The arrest of a Navy SEAL has raised questions as to how he managed to get past 80 high-powered weapons into the U.S through the military transport and try to sell the smuggled weapons from Iraq or Afghanistan.

The U.S military ranks were full on Friday with people puzzled as to how the seal, one of America’s great warriors, could have been involved in weapon smuggling syndicate.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Las Vegas, Nevada, released an 18-page criminal complaint that could be confused for a thriller; it contains machine guns, money threats and bravado, most of it released to federal agents by a cooperative informant who was previously facing domestic battery and robbery charges.

AK-47 rifles discovered were said to have been involved in battlefields, to add to that they were marked in Arabic letters meaning they were used by the Iraq army or even perhaps according to one of the detectives they were still registered to be in Iraq.

Nicholas Bickle was identified as the Navy SEAL in question and as per the complaint he was talking tough.

Bickles, 33, Naval Special Welfare Command in San Diego, California, was enlisted in 2004 and pinned the SEAL’s trident insignia in 2005 according to the little information that could be got from the Pentagon. He had been deployed to Iraq twice, Kate Wallace, a spokeswoman at Naval Special Warfare Command said.

Bickle is set to appear in court on Friday in San Diego.

The military rules are unambiguous that all personnel are frisked before going home from deployment. The screeners of the military are trained by Custom and Border Protection officials as the ones who screen people, luggage, the gear, and the cargo as Wallace went on to say.

Wallace went on to say that, the armed forces do not have any special waivers from customs inspection as they are subjected to the same rules and restrictions as any other person in uniform.

However the rules are not very strict, incase of Navy SEAL serving special operations. Lawrence, Pentagon correspondent, revealed that some of the officers went through more robust checking than others especially those serving in Special Forces, are subjected to cursory search.

Special Forces squad usually travel with more equipment, even classified hardware, may have short deployment and most a time leave and arrive on different and less formal schedules as opposed to regular troops.

Rank-and file military personnel sometimes are even treated to a more rigorous search than civilians may be subjected to on the airport line: have their duffel on the conveyor belt to be X-rayed one more time before being let to go home or for the plane.

While outside, before the troops go to the military screeners, there are the “Amnesty Boxes” the last ditch opportunity where the military personnel may forget to hand in the battlefield souvenir or might have one more round in a pocket. Navy SEAL are allowed to have the last chance to drop their material into a box without any question.

The rules are stringent on handing back the weapons, leaving those assigned and supplied, which are to be put in the aircraft hold.

Image Credit: