Actual Crime in Progress: Felony Fake Sniper Fraud

[Marcus]

Here is an ongoing crime - this is a fake PEM sniper that has been deliberately and knowingly created by a well known criminal faker, with the specific intent of defrauding someone of $1,800. This is an on-going course of conduct and criminal enterprise that this individual has been committing over many years. What he has done with this one is make up a fake sniper rifle, then take a beat up original scope and artifically and fraudulently age a current Ukrainian production replica PEM siderail mount to match the scope. He is trying to create the impression that this scope and mount have been together for a long time, and hence the mount - and the rifle he stuck it on - are real. The purpose of this is to cheat and steal money from some beginning or less experienced collector. By doing this inter-state and using the U.S. mail, he is also committing Federal Offenses, but of course the Federal Government is too busy persecuting innocent and law abiding firearms owners and collectors to ever bother going after an open and notorious criminal like this.


(Photos removed per request from RMNF moderator, so as to avoid any potential issues or problems for this site with Gunbroker or "Eagle, Idaho". But they're not really necessary, we all know who this is or can figure it out pretty easily. )

[Junk Yard Dog]

Explanation?

[Marcus]

More photos - this is kind of like watching that dum bass, wanna-be Dillinger, bank robber's home video that shows him putting the mask on, loading the gun, and writing the stick-up note on the back of his own bank account deposit slip. (This really did happen!)

[Marcus]

Now here are some photos of a real 1938 Tula PEM sniper. I apoligize for their small size, but they are all I have right now.

[desdem12]

Nice. I have not seen to meany side PEMs or any SA ones. What is the deal with the above posts, and what are we looking for or at? I notice a few PEs for sale and assume they are fake because of the price.

[Marcus]

Details of scope and mount on genuine PEM sniper

[Marcus]

More photos of real PEM sniper

[Marcus]

And a few of the scope

[bunkysdad]

Marcus, I can't be sure where you are coming from. What is your personal experience with this dealer, and how do you know your very detailed accusations are true? I will tell you that I will be the first to say I hate cheating, deceiving, or lying to innocent people, but I need to know the basis for this post, because you have used this forum to identify a specific Gunbroker dealer, post his pictures here, and call him out publicly to be guilty of a crime as well. I am confused.

[Marcus]

Nice. I have not seen to meany side PEMs or any SA ones. What is the deal with the above posts, and what are we looking for or at? I notice a few PEs for sale and assume they are fake because of the price.

The first point is to make the Mosin and Mosin sniper collecting community - especially those who are newer to these fascinating and historic rifles - aware of a criminal who has been preying on members of this community (and also the Mauser sniper collectors) for many years with altered, mis-represented, and outright fraudulent rifles. He used on-line auction sites like Ebay and Gunbroker to facilitate his crimes. When what ever alias - Little Nosh, Licht von Bahir, Guntown, Gunsales, Guns are here, Guns'r'us, several others I don't recall right now, and currently Szocher - this guy uses and then changes when he gets too well known by it, and what ever background he uses ( originally a well weathered wooden porch deck, then as I recall a saltillo tile floor with oriental style rug, now the one seen above), 2 things haven''t changed so far: His location in Eagle, Idaho (he is a gun dealer there, first name if Ferencz...don't remember his last name right now) and his criminal proclivity to cheat and steal with outright fake or highly "enhanced" (combination of fake and real) sniper rifles and their parts like scopes and mounts - particularly Mosins. Look at his own photos in the first 2 spaces, and remember what I said about stupid criminals putting their name and signature on their crimes...no face so far for this thief.

The second point is to show some photos (not the best, I'm sorry) of a real PEM sniper and the details and markings on the mount. Many of the fakers and frauds out there just take off the shelf replica PE and PEM mounts - these are quickly and easily identified by their very crude and visible milling marks. The back of a WW2 PU mount and a WW2 PU base should show this rough machining, a real PE or PEM mount shouldn't. Some of the fakers are a little more industrious and enterprising. They try to smooth out the milling marks on the replica mounts, and reblue them - or bury them in the back yard and urinate on them for a few weeks - to make them look more real and/or to match them to a well used or beater-grade genuine scope. The faker responsible for the gun in question here used to stamp his artifically aged replica mounts with huge, hideous, totally bogus fantasy markings (SNAYPER in huge Cyrillic letters, big Tula stars and Izhevsk communist crests with arrows in triangles on the same mount, bogus WW2 dates, etc.) that were so crude and childish they were almost comical. Now he has toned this down a little, perhaps because more is known about WW2 Mosin snipers and more information is available out there.

Since this site is becoming more and more well known and people are coming here using it as a resource for information about historic military rifles, and this particular forum about Mosin snipers and how to tell real ones from replicas and fakes, I thought it would be good to start out with one of the most prolific and universally despised fakers of less than common rifles. All the replica and fake PU rifles being put together here and abroad are another subject, one we will deal with later.

[Marcus]

Marcus, I can't be sure where you are coming from. What is your personal experience with this dealer, and how do you know your very detailed accusations are true? I will tell you that I will be the first to say I hate cheating, deceiving, or lying to innocent people, but I need to know the basis for this post, because you have used this forum to identify a specific Gunbroker dealer, post his pictures here, and call him out publicly to be guilty of a crime as well. I am confused.

The guy is a crook. A very open, obvious, and well known one who has been publicly preying on people for a long time. As such, he has no rights and protection against exposure under the law, where as I and this site do - it's called the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and all the California and Federal (New York Times, Gertz v Welch, etc.) case law that follows it... I have a law degree and am quite familiar with this. With the full protection of the law and the full knowledge of the truth, I personally stand behind everything I say.

He has never burned me personally - I am an expert and authority on Mosin snipers and am light years beyond being fooled by his clumsy and childish fakes. I'm also recoginized as such by the California courts and have testified as an expert in firearms related cases. But I regularly encounter his victims on other forums, like Gunboards, where we have people who have just discovered the site post photos of their new Mosin sniper that they bought from this guy or one of the other know fakers(like Palisades in Carolina) and we have the sad task of telling them it's a fake and they have been ripped off.

I might add that I personally know that he added the bogus markings to the PEM siderail mounts he was pimping off as real or mounting on fake rifles a while ago, because these were the first replica PEM mounts that were available, had some very distinctive and unique features, and were manufactured by a personal friend of mine. So it was interesting to hear that he had purchased some of these mounts, seen photos of the exact mounts he purchased (these were each individually serial numbered), and then see him offer these same exact mounts, artificially aged and with all kinds of bogus markings added, either paired with a beat up junker original scope or mounted on a fake sniper rifle.

(though not from this guy, I have seen similar things before - in one instance a bare stripped frame for an early Colt Single Action Army miraculously turned into a complete, mint, pristine, all number matching original gun, and I have seen a number of other collector grade Colt pistols be purchased by a certain dealer in such things suddenly grow "original" U.S. military markings that add a lot of value to them but were not on them when said individual bought them the previous week.)

And then there are the happy stories, where someone is about to purchase something from this clown or one of the other thieves, discovers a post like this one, and we save him from beind robbed.

I used to have an ad for " Genuine Mosin sniper authentication &Fake Mosin Sniper Identification services" on Gunbroker for a long time, shining the light of truth on frauds and fakers like this guy and the others like him, and saved a lot of people from getting robbed there. I took it down a while ago when the fakers either ran and hid or changed their descriptions and started listing their fakes and replicas for what they were, but now I see that they are back up to their old tricks. I guess it's time to put my Mosin sniper authentication/fake sniper identification ad back up there, and watch the crooks run like roaches when you flip on the light switch.

[bunkysdad]

That is good info Marcus. I am a member on Gunboards, but rarely ever go there but not for any reason negative. I just have found this place to be home. As a matter of fact the other board is where I found good info some years ago with my Hakim. I can appreciate your passion for exposing the crooks in this industry. I say shout it from the rooftops if you know you are correct. It is obvious you have been on their 6 for some time. I felt it important to ask you to clarify because I just didn't know you, or the seller on GB, although I doubt that a day goes by that I am not on GB. I don't personally have much interest in buying the sniper rifles because of all of the fakery going on, and to obain one that is affordable would most likely be a fake, unless I just got very lucky.