Seems US Government investigators aren’t satisfied probing WoW; they’re going undercover on eBay as well. They’ve discovered U.S. military equipment up for grabs on the auction site.

From the AP: Investigators managed to purchase at least a dozen military items from both eBay and Craigslist, from January 2007 through March this year. Quite a number of the stolen equipment is restricted from overseas sales, since they’re on the Defense Department’s U.S. Munitions List, according to the Government Accountability Office. Items included F-14 fighter jet components, a used Nuclear Biological Chemical protective suit and other protective accessories.

“Many of the sensitive items we purchased could have been used directly against our troops and allies, or reverse engineered to develop counter measures or equivalent technologies,” said investigators in their report.

Of course, somehow the report manages to talk about tax implications: “Although not all of the stolen property items available on eBay and Craigslist were sensitive, each item was purchased with taxpayer money and represents a waste of resources,” said investigators.

The Army started a program in 2006 to account for all the item in its inventory, and so far has accounted for more than 20,000 items worth more than $135 million. That’s one thing to keep an inventory but it boggles the mind that investigators would be infiltrating auction sites – what next, Amazon? Flickr?

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Entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 1:06 am under Uncategorized.

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