Policing printers

Customs officials have implemented a new policy that mandates employees to detain all three-dimensional or 3D printers imported into Jamaica, pending an internal verification of the end-user, a leaked internal memo has revealed.

The move by the Jamaica Customs Agency (JCA) comes amid fears that Jamaican crime syndicates have gained access to the machines and are using them to print component parts used to make so-called ‘ghost guns’.

A ghost gun is a firearm typically assembled within minutes via easy-to-follow instructions, with parts that are sold online or printed by a 3D machine. It has no serial number and there is no official record of its existence, making it untraceable.

By comparison, the police maintain a database, the Integrated Ballistic Information System, which contains the ballistic signature of all guns that are legally imported into the country.

The JCA internal memo, which was circulated to all employees on January 28 this year, said the new policy was “effective immediately”.

It directed that 3D printers “must” be detained by members of the JCA’s operations teams who are then required to “immediately” notify its investigation branch to facilitate an “end-use verification”.

“The printer must not be released until a written clearance is issued by the investigation branch,” states the memo, a copy of which was seen by The Sunday Gleaner.

“Three-dimensional printers have the potential to manufacture firearms, firearm components and other prohibited weapons, posing a security risk in Jamaica. Consequently, the agency is strengthening its oversight mechanism regarding the importation and use of 3D printing equipment.”

Forty-four 3D printers were imported into Jamaica over the last three years, a senior Government insider disclosed, noting that “this is based on what has been declared” to Customs.

A majority were purchased by private companies and “approximately 50 per cent” were brought in through courier firms, the insider revealed.

A 3D printer and four illegal guns were among several items that were seized by the police during an operation in St Catherine last October.

Senior Superintendent Hopton Nicholson, commanding officer for the St Catherine Police, told journalists at the time that, “based on investigations so far, it was being used to print firearm paraphernalia”.

Nicholson said the machine was capable of printing firearm suppressors, more commonly known as silencers.

“We looked at one of the laptops that was seized…and on this laptop we saw schematics and software that are used to connect to the 3D printer that can be used to print firearm paraphernalia,” he said while displaying the printer.

“And we see where the person who had this laptop has the necessary skills and expertise to use the software on it to develop and print things,” Nicholson added.

A top law enforcement official responded “we believe so” when asked if Jamaican criminal networks are making their own guns from 3D printed component parts.

The official said the machine seized in St Catherine, had “evidence of it”, but declined to comment further.

More than 80 per cent of murders recorded in Jamaica involve the use of a gun, police statistics show.

However, legal experts have flagged the new JCA policy, arguing that customs officials acted outside their lawful authority.

Questions have also been raised about whether the JCA consulted stakeholders before the policy was introduced.

One attorney, who did not want to be named, acknowledged the security concerns around the importation of 3D printers, but said Government entities “do not get to rewrite how lawful goods are treated because a risk exists in theory”.

He said a memo can guide customs officers and inform internal processes, but it cannot, on its own, impose a rule that affects importers, businesses and private citizens.

“The law has a name for that: it’s called acting ultra vires or acting beyond the powers granted,” the attorney told The Sunday Gleaner.

The JCA has not yet responded to questions that were submitted last Thursday, enquiring, among other things, about whether it sought and obtained legal advice on the policy before implementation.

However, the JCA noted, in the internal memo, that the new policy is consistent with the scheme of the Firearms (Prohibition, Restriction and Regulation) Act 2022, which addresses 3D printed guns and the enabling technology.

“Section 28 (2) [of the legislation] provides a framework for the control of relevant items and technology that can be used in the production of prohibited weapons,” the memo states.

That provision, the attorney contended, is lawmakers doing their job of identifying a risk and creating a framework to manage it.

“A framework for control is not a blank cheque. Nowhere in the Act is a 3D printer declared a prohibited item, nowhere does it authorise the blanket detention of every such device entering the country,” he argued.

“That leap from risk to automatic suspicion does not come from the law. It comes from a memo. No timelines, no criteria and no explanation.”

Further, the attorney pointed to the possible impact the policy could have on businesses and citizens.

“The business owner waiting on the equipment that is now sitting in limbo. The student whose project is stalled.”

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com