Stealing Arms Easy and Widespread, Thief Says : Senate Panel Hears From Ex-GI Who Took Tons of Mines, Rockets, Explosives From Army Depots

A former Army supply sergeant now under federal indictment told a Senate panel Wednesday that military security and regulations are so flawed that “anybody and everybody can walk away” from supply depots with huge quantities of ammunition and explosives.

Shawn Helmer, 27, who is accused of attempting to sell undercover federal agents a truckload of rockets, grenades, plastic explosives and other munitions, described a “huge cycle of pilfering” and said that “it’s Army-wide.”

Wilson Heads Probe

He testified before a Senate Armed Services Committee task force headed by Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) that began an investigation after The Times reported that vast amounts of ammunition and explosives were among materiel unaccounted for in the far-flung military supply system.

In opening the hearing, Wilson cited indications that military ordnance is ending up in the hands of criminals, drug dealers and motorcycle gangs and that “there is a potential” for its falling “into the hands of terrorists and extremist groups.”

Helmer testified that motorcycle gangs in Washington state were among the purchasers of stolen munitions. For a grenade, he said, “the going market rate was $50 a pop” and anti-tank rockets could be sold for $1,000 “or even more if they (the buyers) were in a hurry.”

Filed False Reports

He said that, as a supply sergeant for an elite Ranger battalion at Ft. Lewis, Wash., in the early 1980s, he regularly filed false reports to cover up for shortages of munitions.

“The Army never questioned why the stuff wasn’t there. They just wanted to see the documents were filled out, losses reconciled,” he testified. “I had to come up with a reason for everything missing. But, most of the time, I just had to put down some kind of excuse, and there was often no truth behind them.”

Helmer said he would back an Army truck up to a storage area at Ft. Lewis, load it with ammunition and explosives, later transfer the materiel to his van and drive off the base to load it into a rental truck. “It was that simple,” he said. “ . . . I was able to get off the post with this stuff without ever getting stopped.”

Could Have Stolen More

He added: “I could have taken a lot more . . . but I just wasn’t strong enough” to lift the 250-pound cartons.

“What I did, I did alone,” said Helmer, who testified without promise of immunity. “The system is so flawed that you do not need an accomplice.”

When he was arrested in Florida last spring, three years after he left the Army, authorities said they confiscated 23,000 pounds of ammunition and explosives, including 60 Claymore anti-personnel mines, five anti-tank rockets, 59 fragmentation grenades and 110 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives.

Brig. Gen. Charles M. Murray, the Army’s director of supply and maintenance, told the panel that new bookkeeping and security procedures have been implemented to prevent thefts.

In the past, he acknowledged, the system “could be circumvented by individuals willing to sign documents, to lie, to cheat and to steal.” Now, with new procedures, “it would be impossible,” he said.

As examples of the tightened procedures, Murray cited standardized and centralized programs for issuing training ammunition, hand grenades, land mines and other explosives, including “signature accountability” down to the unit level and simplified turn-in procedures for excess munitions.

Weapons Cache in Dallas

The panel heard also from Dallas police officials who described their frustrations in seeking the Army’s cooperation after they seized a cache of more than nine tons of military-type munitions, including 900 rockets still in their crates, in the months before the 1984 Republican National Convention there.

Deputy Chief Greg Holliday described his repeated but unsuccessful efforts to get the Army to determine if the munitions had been stolen from military stockpiles. “The boxes were painted green and marked U.S. Army,” he said, “but the Army concluded the stuff didn’t belong to them. We find that hard to believe.”