Mysterious Crime Spree Targeted National Guard Equipment Stashes

A string of previously undisclosed break-ins at Tennessee National Guard armories last fall marks the latest in a growing series of security breaches at military facilities across the United States, raising fresh concerns about the vulnerability of US armories to theft and intrusion.

A confidential memo from the Tennessee Fusion Center reviewed by WIRED details four break-ins at Tennessee National Guard armories over a seven-week span. In one incident, thieves made off with night vision goggles, laser target locators, and thermal weapons sights, among other equipment. At others, intruders breached fences, tripped alarms, and gained access to supply rooms discovered in the aftermath to have been unlocked.

At least some of the break-ins seem to point to potential insider help. In Covington, Tennessee, for example, evidence suggests intruders may have known in advance the location of a secure key control box. At other sites, attempts were made to bypass alarms and entry points.

The memo, which was intended solely for law enforcement use, does not indicate that any weapons were stolen; however, a government anti-terrorism coordinator is quoted as saying: “These events are concerning not only due to the stolen items being sensitive in nature but also because of the indicators for some insider knowledge being needed for successful breach and theft.”

The document, first obtained by the nonprofit watchdog group Property of the People, was shared exclusively with WIRED.

The break-ins remain under active investigation and have drawn the attention of the Pentagon’s Office of the Provost Marshal General—the US Army’s leading law enforcement authority. A senior police source informed WIRED on Tuesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation. The FBI declined to confirm.

“FBI policy prohibits confirming or denying an investigation unless in rare circumstances when publicity would help the investigation, such as in seeking a missing child or trying to identify a bank robber,” Elizabeth Clement-Webb, an FBI public affairs officer, says. “The matter you’re inquiring about does not meet that exception, so it would not be appropriate to comment.”

The Pentagon referred questions to the National Guard. The Guard did not respond to a request for comment.

Initially regarded as isolated incidents, the memo cites years’ worth of FBI and Defense Department reporting on what agents call “domestic violent extremists,” or DVEs, discussing plans to raid armories for weapons and gear, leading analysts to suspect organized activity. Domestic intelligence has consistently flagged violent militia members and racially motivated extremists eyeing armories as soft targets.

“Although DVEs previously have stolen some lower-level military gear, the FBI has not identified any instances in which a DVE successfully raided an armory to steal heavy military equipment,” the memo reads. “To circumvent such a raid, FBI and DoD are enhancing liaison with local armories and military facilities to address gaps in reporting about current plots to exploit armory vulnerabilities and increase opportunities to detect and prevent DVE theft of military equipment.”

Between 2020 and 2024, the memo says, at least four FBI subjects discussed raiding military facilities for heavy weapons, including .50-caliber firearms and machine guns. Three had confirmed military backgrounds. One—a former Guard member—identified specific armories that he had served in, while describing how best to exploit their security. It’s unclear whether any charges were brought.

Extremist chatter cited by the document echos these ambitions. In early 2024, a militia-linked Telegram user proposed assessing armory vulnerabilities with help from sympathetic firefighters and sought military or law enforcement recruits for inside information. In another case, an active-duty tank commander claimed he could sway an armorer to hand over weapons, while a former Air Force contractor talked about raiding a Guard facility to seize mortars and secure land.

Together, these incidents point to a persistent and ideologically varied interest in exploiting armory weaknesses. The Tennessee break-ins, meanwhile, preceded several other armory breaches around the country, underscoring a broader trend in security threats.

"Especially when coupled with more recent events, the document makes clear that violent neo-Nazis and far-right militia groups continue to pose a serious and ongoing threat—and that state governments are failing in their duty to secure dangerous military hardware,” says Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People.

This year alone, thieves stole three Humvees and other military gear from an Army Reserve center in Tustin, California; raided storage containers at a Colorado National Guard facility; and allegedly attempted to steal body armor and communications gear from a US Army Ranger site in Washington. In the latter case, law enforcement claim the suspects used their status as veterans to gain entry to the base, highlighting ongoing concerns about insider access.

Similarly, a break-in at a Massachusetts Army Reserve center in 2015—during which numerous rifles and pistols were stolen—was carried out by a former service member, later sentenced to 11 years in prison. Their familiarity with the facility’s security systems and physical layout reportedly enabled the robbery.

For decades, US military stockpiles have been prime targets for high-stakes theft. In the 1970s, arms traffickers raided facilities in California, escaping with caches of powerful weapons. A 1976 heist at a Massachusetts armory turned up a shoulder-fired missile launcher. And in 1995, a former soldier commandeered a tank in San Diego, leading police of a destructive, city-wide chase.

Despite repeated policy changes and years of heightened scrutiny, the nation's thousands of armories remain vulnerable to both external intruders and those with insider access. Modern security improvements have done little to deter interest in breaching them. In Tennessee alone, the fusion center memo notes that state officials have received at least 25 suspicious activity reports over the past decade, detailing attempted surveillance and theft.

Luke Baumgartner, a former Army officer and extremism researcher at George Washington University, says the Tennessee armory break-ins do appear to bear the hallmarks of an inside job—assuming suspicions about the intruders knowing the locations of secure keys are accurate.

“It’s not an uncommon occurrence,” he says, pointing to the recent thefts at Washington’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord. In June, the FBI arrested two former service members for their alleged involvement in the thefts and the hammer assault of a soldier on base. The FBI recovered a stockpile of weapons found in the suspects’ home, amid an assortment of Nazi iconography and white supremacist literature.

Extremist ties to the military can run in both directions, Baumgartner explains: Some groups actively recruit veterans, contractors, and even active-duty troops to exploit their skills and access. Others will join the military explicitly to gain tactical training, weapons experience, and insider knowledge they can later pass on.

Weapons, meanwhile, aren’t the only concern. “There’s sensitive equipment in there,” he says. “There’s secure radios. There’s equipment that contains classified information. You have to have a certain level of clearance to access some of that.”

Such heists could also carry symbolic weight for anti-government extremists, Baumgartner says, by casting the federal government as weaker than it appears. “To the casual observer, what it signals is that even institutions we think of as being shielded from this sort of action are not actually immune.”