After an attempted murder in a gang fight in the French city of Marseille last year, police found what appeared to be a plastic automatic rifle, made from plastic parts and Lego bricks.
"But the weapon was deadly," recalled Colonel Erve Petri from the national gendarmerie.
In the past three years, this model of home-made semi-automatic firearm, known as the FGC-9, has appeared in the hands of paramilitary forces in Northern Ireland, rebels in Myanmar and neo-Nazis in Spain. A British teenager will be sentenced in October for making the FGC-9, in one of the latest cases of terrorism linked to the weapon.
An online group known as Deterrence Dispensed publishes free instructions on how to make these weapons, a manual that says people everywhere should be armed and ready.
"Together we can defeat forever the violation of our natural right to bear arms, to defend ourselves and to rise up against tyranny," the document reads.
This American brand of libertarianism has historically had a hard time in many other parts of the world. Even if some people theoretically believed in it, strict laws made it so difficult to buy a gun that the ideology was almost irrelevant.
The FGC-9 changes that.
"It's not just a gun, it's also an ideology," said Kristijan Abrahamson, intelligence officer of the Swedish customs police. He said dozens of FGC-9 rifles have appeared in his country in recent years.
The New York Times has followed the development of the FGC-9 from an amateur's garage project to a deadly rifle in the hands of insurgents, terrorists, drug dealers and militia members in at least 15 countries.
While countless 3D-printed weapons have been designed and circulated online, international law enforcement officials say the FGC-9 is by far the most common. The weapon is so sought after by far-right extremists in Britain that possessing and sharing instructions for its use is now treated as an act of terrorism.
No one promotes weapons and ideology more than its co-designer, who goes by the name Ivan Troll on the internet. The leader of Deterrence Dispensed, he has appeared in numerous YouTube videos and podcasts, but always under pseudonyms.
Court documents, corporate records and information posted on his social media accounts link Ivan Troll to a 26-year-old gun manufacturer from Illinois named John Ellick. Elik, whose aunt is a member of the state parliament, has become one of the most important figures in the emerging international industry of 3D printed weapons.
Police forces around the world see the industry as a threat to regulations that have restricted access to firearms. Both the authorities and gun rights supporters agree on this.
The Times sent a request for an interview and a summary of the article to Elik's e-mail address. According to the order, Ivan Trol was refused to answer the questions and stated that he did not believe that he would be treated fairly.
The weapon is so sought after by far-right extremists in Britain that possessing and sharing instructions for its use is now treated as an act of terrorism
In the United States, 3D printed weapons are regulated by a bunch of state laws. Illinois has restricted the sale and possession of homemade gun parts, except for firearms dealers and manufacturers. Since he is a licensed manufacturer, there is no indication that Elik is breaking that law. Illinois law requires manufacturers to add serial numbers to homemade gun components.
Most mass-produced weapons of the 20th century, even those now sold for personal defense, were originally designed for the military and hunters. The FGC-9, in contrast, was made with the explicit goal of arming as many ordinary people as possible.
FGC is an acronym that represents what its creators think about gun control. Nine stands for the 9mm bullet it fires.
The use of the FGC-9 by rebels opposed to the military junta in Myanmar is part of the stated plan of its creators, the realization of the hope that the weapon could be used to oppose the state.
Elik said in an email to The Times that it is wrong to focus on "European police officers who complain about the small number of weapons found" and shootings in which no one was injured, "instead of the use of guns as a tool for liberation."
The chief designer of the rifle was Jakob Dujgu, a German citizen of Kurdish origin.
Germany requires gun owners to have permits, but Dujgu wanted to own a firearm on his own terms. He made it his mission to give everyone the tools to do the same, especially in countries with strict gun control laws.
Dujgu developed an affinity for American libertarianism and the Second Amendment right to bear arms, according to Rajan Basra, a senior fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization who has studied the proliferation of FGC-9.
Dujgu was known on the Internet as JStark, in honor of Major General John Stark, the military leader of the American Revolution.
Similar views are expressed on social media accounts linked to Elika.
"Civilians need automatic weapons because having a weapon designed to kill people is very important for self-defense," one post said, adding: "If it's designed to kill people quickly and easily, so much the better."
Dujgu's design was released in March 2020 with the stated goal of circumventing gun laws. Homemade firearms have been around for centuries, but Dujgu's was a revolutionary step. The FGC-9 could be built entirely from scratch, without commercial weapon parts, which are often regulated and monitored by law enforcement agencies internationally.
Most mass-produced weapons of the 20th century were originally designed for the military and hunters. The FGC-9, in contrast, was made with the explicit goal of arming as many ordinary people as possible
Anyone with a commercial 3D printer, a few hundred dollars in materials, some metalworking skills, and enough patience could become a gun owner.
"It's a turning point," Basra said. “Now you have something that people can make at home with unregulated components. So, from a law enforcement perspective, how do you stop it?”
The assembly instructions for the first version of the FGC-9 dictate that each rifle be engraved with General Stark's motto, "Live Free or Die."
The release of the FGC-9 inspired gun enthusiasts to propose their own modifications. Among them was Elik, who separately developed a do-it-yourself process for making spiral grooves, or threads, inside a rifle barrel.
A year later, a new version of the FGC-9 was released, with the pseudonym Elika listed as co-creator.
Basra and a security researcher, Nathan Meyer, first linked Elik to the Ivan Troll accounts using Internet clues after he was identified in a lawsuit as the owner of a site promoting 3D-printed weapons.
The Times repeated and built on that research using photos and videos Elik posted of his home and shooting ranges on his family's property, including his aunt's.
His aunt, Amy Ellick, is a Republican lawmaker and staunch supporter of gun rights. She voted against the state's ban on homemade firearms. She did not respond to a message requesting comment.
Dujgu was found dead in 2021 of unknown causes, just days after being questioned by German police. Elik quickly became the most prominent spokesperson for the weapons they created and went on to develop his own designs for weapons partially made using 3D printers, including versions of the "Kalashnikov" and the MP5 assault rifle.
"This pure marketplace of ideas was not created by accident, even if it is far more successful than Stark or I ever imagined," one of the online accounts associated with Elika wrote.
The weapon first came to public attention in December 2020, when Matthew Kronjager, a British neo-Nazi, was arrested and charged with attempting to recruit and arm a militia. Among the targets were the British government, Jews, homosexuals, Muslims and members of ethnic minorities.
Kronjager, who was 17 at the time, downloaded the Deterrence Dispensed manual for making 9mm ammunition and plans for the FGC-9 from the Internet. He was arrested after he tried to pay an undercover officer to build a rifle. Kronjager, who was later sentenced to more than 11 years in prison, said he wanted to overthrow the government and start a revolution, court records show.
Since then, several people with racist and anti-immigration leanings have been prosecuted for terrorism-related offenses in Europe after trying to obtain weapons to carry out mass shootings. These weapons have also been found with drug gangs and prisoners in Brazil, according to the authorities there.
Now you have something people can make at home with unregulated components. So, from a law enforcement perspective, how do you stop it?
No law enforcement officials have yet linked the FGC-9 to any murders, though they say that may be because traditional forensic techniques aren't always reliable on homemade weapons.
Ivajlo Stefanov of Interpol's Prohibited Weapons Unit said: "Everyone thought it would take decades for technology to advance and for printers to be available to private citizens."
Interpol is notified of FGC-9 seizures at least every two months, and Stefanov says many seizures likely go unreported. "You see it even in European countries that have never had such cases before," he said.
Ivan Troll's media message is that this is hypocrisy. Western governments, he stated, have armed the world's rebels and authoritarian leaders with weapons of war. “I'm sharing a computer file,” he said in an interview in 2022. “If I'm guilty of sharing information, then what are they?”
And while the FGC-9 has become common among some far-right extremists around the world, it has also been adopted by rebel groups fighting the military junta in Myanmar, which has committed atrocities against its own people.
"A lot of people use them," said one fighter there, who goes by the nickname 3-D. He said that the FGC-9 is often used for personal defense and not for combat because it tends to get stuck in harsh jungle conditions.
As technology advances, Stefanov and others say amateur gunmakers will likely be able to use untraceable parts to make weapons that fire like machine guns. Joe Biden's administration is trying to regulate homemade gun components as firearms. The Supreme Court will soon consider that initiative.
Increasingly, FGC-9s are produced not only by individual hobbyists and extremists, but also by criminal operations that make weapons for sale or rent. Makeshift factories have been found in Australia, France and Spain.
"There is an obvious ideological element," said Colonel Petri, a French officer. "But we must not be naive. Above all, there is a desire to get fabulously rich".
Translated and edited by: A. Šofranac
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