Darren Hillyer, 38, posed as a woman supposedly wanting revenge on a paedophile ex-lover. He bought a Ruger LC9 9mm pistol and 50 rounds of ammunition from a dark web “gun trader”.
In reality, the seller account was under the control of officers from the National Crime Agency who forwarded a plastic replica gun hidden inside a DAB radio.
Hillyer had arranged to receive the “gun” through a middleman, a 47 year old he had come to know through an online chat forum but had never met in person. Ian MacPhee, from Newton Abbot, Devon, was arrested when he picked up the parcel from a local post office in late July. MacPhee had agreed to forward the package to Hillyer.
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