By Steve Neavling
FBI Director Kash Patel gifted inoperable pistols to New Zealand’s top police and intelligence officials during a July visit, but the weapons violated local gun laws and were destroyed, authorities confirmed to the Associated Press.
The 3D-printed pistols were part of display stands presented to Police Commissioner Richard Chambers, NZSIS Director-General Andrew Hampton, and GCSB Director-General Andrew Clark. New Zealand law treats inoperable guns as though they could be made functional, and police said the weapons were deemed “potentially operable.”
“To ensure compliance with firearms laws, I instructed Police to retain and destroy them,” Chambers said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the spy agencies described the items as “a challenge coin display stand” that included the replica pistols “as part of the design.”
It remains unclear what permissions Patel sought to bring the weapons into the country. His office declined to comment.
James Davidson, a former FBI agent who heads the FBI Integrity Project, criticized Patel’s appointment but called the gift “a genuine gesture,” adding its destruction was “quite frankly, an overreaction by the NZSIS, which could have simply rendered the replica inoperable.”
