FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly showed up in New Zealand this summer with diplomatic pleasantries and a handful of plastic guns that authorities rushed to get rid of because of an explosion risk.
The “inoperable pistols” he handed to senior security officials as gifts were actually Maverick PG22s, 3D-printed revolvers modeled on a toy Nerf gun and beloved by the hobbyist gunsmith crowd, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.
AP first revealed that Patel gifted the revolvers as part of display stands during meetings with New Zealand’s police and spy chiefs and two cabinet ministers in July. Police documents released this week confirmed the guns’ identity and made clear why they didn’t stay in those officials’ offices for long.
“The first risk is that it can be made viable and it gets into the hands of the wrong person and it’s used for a crime,” said Professor Alexander Gillespie of the University of Waikato. “The second risk is it just explodes because it’s not actually safe.”
But the FBI assured the Daily Beast that the guns were designed to be safe.
“The gifted item was a 3D printed replica of a firearm, and it was specially designed to be incapable of firing ammunition. The item was modified in various ways, to include but not limited to omitting chambers, barrels, and firing pin within the replica,” a spokesperson said. “These modifications ensured that it was inoperable.”
Three top law enforcement officials—Police Commissioner Andrew Coster, intelligence service chief Andrew Hampton, and signals intelligence boss Andrew Clark—received the gifts on July 31. Police Minister Mark Mitchell and Judith Collins, the cabinet minister overseeing defense and intelligence, also got one. All five promptly handed the guns over.
In New Zealand, pistols are tightly restricted, and people generally take a dim view of firearms after a white supremacist shot dead 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019. Even senior government officials need a permit beyond a standard firearms license.
Once they were surrendered, firearms specialists quickly concluded that Patel’s plastic revolvers met the legal definition of actual firearms under New Zealand law. The country treats 3D-printed weapons no differently than steel ones. And, crucially, inoperable guns still count if they can be made operable with modest tinkering.
In an August email, police armory team leader Daniel Millar had this very concern. He told colleagues it would be remarkably simple to make the Maverick PG22 functional, according to AP. “These processes are very straight forward processes and require minimal skills and common ‘handyperson’ tools,” Millar wrote. The tools in question are “a battery drill and a drill bit for the holes and a small screw for the firing pin.”
New Zealand’s police union said in February that the Maverick PG22 is one of the most common 3D-printed weapons seized by officers. Millar’s team asked to keep one of Patel’s revolvers for testing, but the police commissioner denied the request. All the guns were destroyed on Sept. 25.
Online instructions for the Maverick PG22 warn that it “does not feature proper modern safeties and should be used in a controlled environment.” It remains unclear who manufactured Patel’s gift guns, though Millar noted they had been “manufactured to a high standard.”
Patel, the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit New Zealand, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in the country. The visit was also supposed to bolster the Five Eyes alliance, an intelligence-sharing partnership of five countries: the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
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