THE gun dealer from York arrested in the United States on suspicion of illegally importing thousands of Chinese weapon parts has been charged.

Gary Hyde, who runs York Guns in Dunnington and is director of York-based firm Jago Ltd, is named in a grand jury indictment document, along with two other men.

The document, endorsed by a New York court, says Hyde, Karl Kleber and Paul Restorick did “fraudulently and knowingly” import Chinese-made AK-47 rifle drum magazines, in breach of a U.S. ban on arms from China.

The indictment also says the men failed to accurately state where the parts had come from, and says the paperwork provided claimed they were from Bulgaria.

The U.S. has an embargo banning the import of Chinese weaponry. All three men are charged with two related counts As reported in The Press on Saturday, Hyde was arrested by federal agents in Las Vegas earlier this month, following an investigation into a shipment of 5,760 drum magazines for AK-47s, worth a total of 345,600 dollars.

The grand jury indictment says the magazines were to be sold to a New York firm called American Tactical Imports (ATI), by German firm Transarms Hendelsgesellschaft.

It states that sometime around March 2008, when it sought permission to import the magazines, ATI provided paperwork stating they had been manufactured in Kasnalak/Bulgaria.

It says that several months later, when ATI wanted to claim the magazines from U.S. Homeland Security, it provided more paperwork listing Bulgaria as the country of manufacture.

The indictment says the magazines were delivered to ATI’s business premises in Rochester, New York, some time after September 1, 2008, and says Restorick and Kleber later communicated about documentation relating to the sale of 5,760 Chinese-manufactured, 75-round capacity, AK-47 drum magazines.