Federal prosecutors say Andrew Paul Amarillas took military weapons and ammunition from Camp Pendleton and moved them into Arizona for profit.
PHOENIX, AZ — A Marine corporal from Arizona has been charged in federal court with stealing a Javelin missile system and military ammunition from Camp Pendleton in California, then arranging to sell the gear in Arizona, according to court records and local reporting published Friday.
Andrew Paul Amarillas, 23, a Glendale native and ammunition technician assigned to the School of Infantry-West at Camp Pendleton, was indicted this week in Arizona and entered a not guilty plea in Phoenix on Thursday. The case matters because prosecutors say the stolen items were not ordinary firearms but restricted military equipment, including a Javelin system and cans of M855 ammunition, with some records suggesting far more ammunition may still be missing. A federal judge ordered Amarillas held in custody pending trial.
Investigators say the case grew from Amarillas’ access to explosives and ammunition while serving as an ammunition technician specialist at Camp Pendleton. According to the court account described by Arizona’s Family and 12News, prosecutors allege he removed military property from the base and brought it into Arizona, where two unindicted co-conspirators acted as middlemen. The records say those middlemen then worked with two Arizona companies to move the items farther into the private market. Messages cited in the court filings appear to show the dealmaking in plain language. In one exchange, Amarillas allegedly wrote that he had “some javs,” a shorthand reference investigators treated as Javelin systems. In another, he allegedly said he had “2 launchers” for a buyer to inspect the next day. Prosecutors say those messages helped tie the Phoenix-area sales effort to missing gear from Southern California.
Authorities say undercover officers later bought some of the ammunition from the Arizona companies, giving investigators physical evidence to trace. Lot numbers on seized cans, according to the filings described in local reports, led agents back to an Army depot in Utah and to ammunition supply points at Camp Pendleton and the School of Infantry-West. Some of those lot numbers, the reports said, had been signed out by Amarillas. Federal agents also recovered a Javelin missile system that investigators said was traced to Camp Pendleton. Prosecutors have not said publicly whether every allegedly stolen item has been recovered, and that remains one of the central unknowns in the case. The detention paperwork quoted by Arizona’s Family said “about 2 million rounds of M855” could be unaccounted for. Prosecutors also said agents seized “one of the Javelin Missile Systems” Amarillas allegedly agreed to steal and sell, wording that suggests they are still trying to determine whether more military hardware was taken.
The equipment named in the case helps explain the alarm around it. The FGM-148 Javelin is a shoulder-fired precision missile system designed to destroy tanks and other armored vehicles, and it is widely treated as a high-value battlefield weapon, not something that should ever drift into civilian circulation. The system uses infrared guidance and is often described as a “fire and forget” weapon because, once fired, it guides itself toward the target. The launcher and missile together are portable enough for troops to carry in the field, which makes military control and accountability especially important. In this case, prosecutors say the alleged theft was not limited to a single item taken as a trophy or curiosity. Their theory is that Amarillas used his routine access inside an ammunition system to feed a resale pipeline, with Arizona serving as the market. That allegation places the case in a broader category of military accountability failures, where the key question is not only what went missing but how long it remained undetected.
By the time Amarillas appeared in federal court in Phoenix on Thursday, prosecutors were already arguing that he should stay in jail while the case proceeds. They said he posed a flight risk and a danger to potential evidence and witnesses at Camp Pendleton. The detention filing, as described in the Arizona reports, said Amarillas was arrested before he finished an eight-week training course in Quantico, Virginia. Prosecutors said that training was connected to a possible deployment to protect the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar, a detail they used to show both his active-duty status and his continuing access to military systems and personnel. A judge ordered him detained after the arraignment and detention hearing. Public court listings identify the case as USA v. Andrew Paul Amarillas, docket number CR 26-00278-01-PHX-SPL, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. The next court date was not immediately available in the public calendar entries reviewed Saturday.
The public record still leaves important gaps. Prosecutors have named two unindicted co-conspirators and said two Arizona companies were involved in sales, but the names of those people and businesses were not laid out in the material available through the reports reviewed Saturday. Officials also have not publicly described how the alleged thefts were first discovered, how long they may have lasted, or whether the military changed inventory controls after the missing items were identified. Amarillas’ lawyer had not publicly answered the allegations in detail beyond the not guilty plea, and Arizona’s Family reported that it had reached out to both defense counsel and Camp Pendleton officials for comment. For now, the known picture is narrow but serious: a young Marine with access to controlled military property is accused of moving a missile system and ammunition off base, into Arizona, and toward cash buyers. The unanswered question is whether investigators have already found the full extent of the missing stock or are still only seeing part of it.
The case stood Saturday at an early but unusually stark stage: an active-duty Marine, a federal indictment, one recovered Javelin system, seized ammunition traced by lot number, and a judge’s order keeping the defendant in custody as the Arizona prosecution moves forward. The next milestone will be the setting of additional federal court dates in Phoenix and any fuller public release of the indictment and detention filings.
Author note: Last updated March 28, 2026.