Police want to make it an offence to download or possess blueprints for 3D-printed firearms amid rising manufacturing. Video / Ben Dickens / Michael Morrah / Mark Mitchell
An Auckland gun shop owner was caught illegally selling ammunition and a firearm to unlicensed customers in an undercover police sting.
The 65-year-old was arrested in January 2024 at the conclusion of a covert operation run by the specialist firearms investigation team, but was granted name suppression when he firstappeared in court.
He can now be identified as William Neil Cleverdon after he admitted 15 criminal charges including using a document to gain a pecuniary advantage, selling a firearm to an unlicensed individual, unlawful possession of firearms and possession of prohibited firearms.
The Herald can also reveal that the police used undercover officers to pose as unlicensed customers at Cleverdon’s store in Helensville, west of Auckland, called Will’s Outfitters.
The prosecution focused on three illegal sales made by Cleverdon at the gun store at the end of 2023.
In October 2023, he sold 100 shotgun shells and 80 rifle rounds to a female customer who did not hold a firearms licence. The buyer was actually an undercover police officer who told Cleverdon that the ammunition was for her boyfriend who did have a licence.
To put the sale through, Cleverdon fraudulently used his own firearms licence number. He also advised the unlicensed buyer that, if questioned about the ammunition, she should claim to be acting as a courier.
The next month, November 2023, a male undercover officer purchased 60 rounds of rifle ammunition using the expired firearms licence of a female associate.
Knowing the licence was expired and belonged to someone else, Cleverdon fraudulently recorded the details of the woman as the purchaser.
The gun dealer advised the undercover officer that, if questioned about the ammunition, to claim ignorance of the contents of the package and to say that Cleverdon “didn’t sell them to him”.
The undercover officer returned to Wills Outfitters in December 2023.
This time he wanted to purchase a Browning .243 rifle and 20 rounds of ammunition.
Again, Cleverdon used the expired licence number of the undercover officer’s female associate to record the sale in the national firearms registry online, which had only been established six months earlier.
It didn’t work, so the undercover officer then provided a valid licence in someone else’s name which Cleverdon used to fraudulently record the purchase.
Selling ammunition to someone without a firearms licence carries a maximum penalty of $10,000 fine, while selling a firearm can lead to two years in prison.
But for each of those transactions, the police have also laid fraud charges.
The gun shop owner is alleged to have used a document - the firearms and ammunition registers - to obtain a pecuniary advantage dishonestly. The total value of the three illegal sales was $2696.
When detectives raided the man’s Auckland home in January 2024, they also found four firearms including a pistol and a fully automatic AK-47 rifle, which he did not have a licence for, hidden under his bed.
Police also found two more semi-automatic rifles which, although legal when Cleverdon first purchased them, had been banned by the stricter gun law reforms made after the March 15 terrorist attack in Christchurch.
Cleverdon had also kept 17 banned high-capacity magazines for the illegal rifles - some capable of holding up to 40 rounds of ammunition - along with a small quantity of cannabis.
He eventually pleaded guilty to all 15 charges laid by police but escaped a potential jail term when he was sentenced to eight months’ home detention in the Waitakere District Court last month.
When approached by the Herald this week, defence lawyer Ginrick Credo said his client did not wish to comment.
Nicole McKee, the associate Justice Minister in charge of the firearms portfolio, and police staff inspect seized illegal firearms after announcing changes to the Firearms Prohibition Orders. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
In a press statement to announce the arrest of Cleverdon last year, Superintendent Richard Wilson said there were a “few bad apples” in the firearms community who abuse the privilege of a licence by supplying those legally purchased firearms to criminals and gangs.
This practice is known as diverting, or “straw buying”.
“The dealer has knowingly sold firearms to individuals who are not lawfully able to possess them,” Wilson said. “We see this as a significant source for how gangs obtain firearms.”
Wilson, who is a director of the Firearms Safety Authority, said diversion of firearms will become more difficult over time with the introduction of the firearms registry, which doesn’t yet have dealer stock in its records.
When fully rolled out by June 2028, Wilson said the registry will help police to trace where criminals have obtained their firearms from.
“Prior to the registry, a licence holder could sell their firearms to another licence holder but was not required to produce a record of who they sold the firearms to – meaning the firearm was untraceable," Wilson said.
“The Firearms Registry closes that loophole and ultimately will make the availability of firearms to the black market more difficult for criminals and gangs.”
Last month, the Ministry of Justice released an independent review of the firearms registry which concluded it was improving public safety, and should be continued despite opposition from the gun lobby groups.
One of those critics was Nicole McKee, formerly a spokesperson for the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners (COLFO) who became an Act MP at the 2023 election.
She was appointed as the minister in charge of the government’s firearms portfolio and one of her first decisions was to order the Justice Ministry to review the firearms registry.
Jared Savage covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006 and has won a dozen journalism awards in that time, including twice being named Reporter of the Year. He is also the author of Gangland, Gangster’s Paradise and Underworld.
