The firearm was headed from an Ohio dealer to a buyer in Florida when tracking stopped in February at a Detroit postal facility.
DETROIT, MI — A registered machine gun mailed through the U.S. Postal Service has gone missing after tracking showed the package reached a Detroit mail facility in early February, leaving federal regulators, postal officials and the Ohio gun dealer who sent it searching for what happened.
The case has drawn notice because the missing item was not an ordinary firearm but a transferable machine gun, a tightly regulated weapon that can be lawfully owned only in limited circumstances. The package moved through Registered Mail, the Postal Service’s highest-security service, and the sender says the last scan appeared in Detroit on Feb. 6. Since then, the dealer has filed a missing-mail request, notified the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and pressed USPS for answers as questions remain over whether the gun was misplaced, stolen or is still somewhere inside the system.
Steve Thompson, an Ohio firearms dealer with Adco Firearms, said he mailed the gun from Portage, Ohio, on Feb. 4 to a purchaser in Florida after completing the paperwork required for the sale. Thompson said the package was sent by Registered Mail, a service designed for valuable or sensitive items and handled through a chain of documented transfers. Tracking showed the parcel moving from Portage to Pontiac, Michigan, before its last known update marked it as “processing” at a USPS facility in Detroit on Feb. 6, Thompson said. After that, the trail stopped. “It’s not just a regular gun. It’s a government registered machine gun,” Thompson said. He said the gun was an original Israeli 9 mm Uzi submachine gun that sold for $25,000.
Thompson said he insured the shipment for $20,000 and first tried to get the package located through the Postal Service’s missing-mail process. When that did not produce the gun, he said he reported it missing to ATF, the federal agency that regulates machine guns and maintains the registration system tied to such weapons. Thompson also pursued an insurance claim with USPS. He said the Postal Service denied the first claim, then denied a first appeal, and approved payment only after a second appeal. Even with the insurance decision, Thompson said he still wants to know where the gun went and whether it remains in government custody or was taken. “Clearly somebody in the Detroit plant knows what happened and there’s got to be some finger pointing, and nobody’s admitting anything,” he said. USPS did not provide a public response in time for the local television reports that first detailed the case.
The disappearance stands out in part because Registered Mail is supposed to provide the highest level of accountability in the postal network. USPS describes the service as its most secure option, using safes, cages, sealed containers, locks and keys, along with receipts that document the item’s movement from acceptance to delivery. Thompson said that system was one reason he chose it for the shipment. A registered package is also supposed to require a signature at delivery, adding another checkpoint before the parcel reaches the recipient. The fact that a package sent under those rules could vanish has sharpened concern for Thompson and for outside observers who say such shipments should leave a clear paper trail. Still, the public record in the case is thin. Postal officials have not said whether the package was misrouted, damaged, stolen, found in a backlog or flagged during an internal review, and no criminal allegations had been publicly announced as of Wednesday night.
The weapon itself adds another layer of urgency. Under federal law, machine guns are heavily restricted, and ATF says civilians generally may not possess machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986, with limited exceptions for government agencies and weapons lawfully possessed before that date. That means older, lawfully registered automatic weapons can command high prices in the legal market because supply is fixed. Thompson said the missing gun falls in that narrow class of legal, registered machine guns. In a separate Detroit television report, former ATF special agent in charge Paul Vanderplow, who was not described as working on this case, said a failure to account for a registered-mail firearm raises obvious concerns because employees sign for such parcels and postal facilities use surveillance cameras. Vanderplow said the handling rules can make high-value gun packages conspicuous, increasing the risk that someone along the chain recognizes what is moving through the system.
No law enforcement agency had publicly said by April 2 that the gun had been recovered, and there was no public notice of charges against a postal employee, a third party or the intended buyer. Thompson said that after journalists began asking questions, someone from USPS contacted him and said the matter was under investigation. FOX 2 Detroit reported that Thompson received what he called a vague update on Saturday and that ATF was involved. Even that left major gaps. It is not publicly clear whether ATF opened a criminal investigation, whether the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is leading the inquiry, whether surveillance video has been reviewed in full or whether the missing package can still be tied to a specific container, cage or employee handoff inside the Detroit facility. It is also not clear whether the weapon was lost as a complete firearm, whether any accessories were included or whether the intended Florida transfer can still be completed if the gun is found. Those unanswered questions are likely to determine whether the matter ends as a costly shipping failure or develops into a federal theft case.
The case has also stirred a broader reaction because of what could happen if the weapon surfaced outside legal channels. “It’s next to impossible to lose a registered package. If they can’t find it, someone took it,” Thompson said in the FOX 2 interview. He also said he worries that if the gun falls into the wrong hands and later appears in a crime, his name will remain tied to a weapon he says he lawfully sold and properly shipped. Vanderplow urged anyone involved to come forward before the situation worsens, saying he could think of several possible ATF-side charges depending on the facts. For now, though, those comments remain hypothetical because officials have not released findings from any review. At the center of the story is a simple gap in the record: a rare firearm was accepted into one of the Postal Service’s most secure mail streams, scanned on its way to Detroit and then disappeared from public tracking before it could reach Florida.
The gun had not been publicly recovered by Thursday, April 2, and neither USPS nor federal authorities had announced a detailed account of what happened after the Feb. 6 scan in Detroit. The next milestone is likely to be any public statement from USPS, ATF or postal inspectors on whether the firearm has been found or whether the case has turned into a criminal investigation.
Author note: Last updated April 2, 2026.