Adair, Iowa, had a population of 794. So, it seemed suspicious when its three-person police department asked regulators to buy 90 machine guns, including an M134 Gatling-style minigun capable of shooting up to 6,000 rounds of ammunition every minute.

Federal agents later discovered Adair's police chief, Bradley Wendt, was using his position to acquire weapons and sell them for personal profit. A jury convicted Wendt earlier this year of conspiracy to defraud the United States, lying to federal law enforcement and illegal possession of a machine gun. Wendt is unapologetic and has appealed his conviction.

"If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. Wendt's crimes appear to be part of a nationwide pattern.

--snrps--

Nearly 26,000 guns were traced from American crime scenes back to a government agency, law enforcement or the military between 2017 and 2021, the most recently available data, according to a report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It isn't known how many of those were lost, stolen or sold. However, when government auditors investigated firearms that law enforcement agencies reported missing over a 15-year period, the General Services Administration Inspector General found that more than two-thirds had not gone missing at all but, rather, were inappropriately sold or traded —including Uzis and grenade launchers that were never recovered.