Intelligence summaries from Operation Tauwhiro provided to the Otago Daily Times under the Official Information Act revealed police have been keeping a keen eye on both local and domestic trends around 3D-printed firearms.
A 3D-printed firearm seized in Waitemata, Auckland in June 2021, during an Armed Offenders Squad raid on a Headhunters-linked address, was believed to have been the first such weapon capable of firing live rounds.
The FGC-9 (F*** Gun Control) carbine, loaded with 9mm rounds, was located along with a sawn-off shotgun.
The design for the FGC-9 was released online in 2020 with the intention of circumventing firearms restrictions in any country.
Other 3D-printed guns — often linked to gangs — have been discovered across the country.
Operation Tauwhiro is a national operation which targets illicit firearms and started in February 2021.
The summaries described 3D-printing technology being used to make guns as an "emerging risk", with plastic weapons likely to become more attractive to criminals, as police crack down on legal weapons being diverted to the black market.
A May 2021 summary raised concerns about a video, likely uploaded from the United States, showing a 3D-printed Nerf-style carbine based on the FCG-9 being fired with live ammunition.
Such untraceable "ghost guns" posed considerable risk to frontline staff due to their appearance as toys, the summary warned.
Another 3D-printed Nerf-style rifle was seized by Australian police in June 2022, with an 18-year-old man arrested in connection to manufacturing it, allegedly in a suburban house.
The same summary noted a homemade firearm was seized at a Wellington address which was "no bigger than a pen and easily concealable".
Neither weapon was readily identifiable as such, especially to untrained people, the summary noted.
Many seizures of 3D-printed guns were linked to organised crime.
A summary from July 2021 noted a 3D-printed imitation Glock pistol — the same type as used by police — had been seized from a Mongrel Mob associate in the Southern district.
A search warrant on a patched Rebels member in Palmerston resulted in a .22 rifle, drugs and 3D-printed firearms parts being found.
The next month, a man was shot in his kneecap at his house in Napier in a gang-linked incident.
When police arrived, they found he had a homemade Taser, a .22 Walther PPK pistol and a 3D-printed FGC-9 carbine, loaded with 9mm rounds.
In March 2022, 3D-printed Uzi style submachine-guns were discovered in Rotorua and the Eastern district.
The next month, police recovered two printers and a firearm from a Feilding address, with suspicions the weapons were being produced to sell to criminals.
A summary from May, noted a Paraparaumu vehicle stop of a Mongrel Mob member which netted $11,000 cash and a 3D-printed extended-capacity magazine loaded with 9mm rounds.
A subsequent search warrant found a 3D printer along with 6.25 grams of methamphetamine at a house.
A summary from August noted intelligence teams were aware of two different operations which were 3D-printing weapons, although the people involved had not been identified.
One was manufacturing a pistol which fired .22 rounds and could be made for less than a couple of hundred dollars with very few metal parts.
"These are currently being manufactured and sold across encrypted platforms in New Zealand," the summary said.
The summaries warned police could see an increase in 3D-printed firearms as the technology continued to get better and cheaper.
3D-printed firearms could potentially be mass produced and there was a wealth of information online, including New Zealand-based discussion, about how to make them.
While plastic weapons usually took weeks to build, were unreliable, and could be dangerous to the operator, metal printing was developing rapidly although the cost of a device was still more than $180,000.
However, a report produced in the wake of the Waitemata raid noted plastic printers were available at Dick Smith for as little as $369. The price of consumer-grade machines had dropped 80% since 2018, it noted.
