Defendant with ghost gun gets bail
Petruk team – 01/22/2024 / 4:00 a.m | History: 468188
Photo: RCMP
Adrian Picketts-Yoxall (left) faces charges of making 3D-printed ghost guns at his Heffley Creek home. These photos provided by police show the 3D printer Picketts-Yoxall allegedly used, as well as a 3D printed ghost gun.
A Kamloops-area man accused of using a 3D printer to make ghost guns has been released on bond.
Adrian Picketts-Yoxall faces six charges of weapons possession, including two counts of manufacturing firearms, as well as possession of a prohibited weapon and unsafe storage of an unlicensed firearm.
During a bail hearing Friday in Kamloops Provincial Court, a judge was told the 31-year-old came to the attention of authorities in December 2021 when Canada Border Services Agency investigators flagged packages from the U.S. bound for Picketts- Yoxall’s home in Heffley addressed the Creek area.
The packages are said to have included firearm parts and a “polymer firearm kit” – something that can be converted into a functional handgun using a 3D printer.
According to the Crown, police conducted a “controlled delivery” to Picketts-Yoxall’s home in January 2022, after which a search warrant was obtained and executed.
The court heard Mounties seized a 3D printer and computer containing the data needed to print and manufacture firearms, as well as long magazines, shotgun ammunition, hard body armor and other weapons.
Picketts-Yoxall was arrested and released in 2022 pending the outcome of the investigation. When police charged him last October, he turned himself in to the Mounties on Vancouver Island.
Ghost guns are untraceable firearms that are manufactured illegally and are often made using a 3D printer.
On Friday, Picketts-Yoxall was granted bail of $7,500. While out on bail, he must live with his brother and observe a curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. He is also prohibited from owning weapons or 3D printers and from staying within 200 meters of the US border.
Picketts-Yoxall is due back in court on February 29.