Luke Fortune has been jailed for 13 years and eight months following an investigation by the UK National Crime Agency. He was sentenced at Bristol Crown Court on 6 November after admitting a range of firearms offences.
The unemployed 23-year-old converted firearms in the garage of his family home on Mapstone Rise, Longwell Green, Bristol, and sold them at a profit to other criminals. He bought tools and equipment to turn the weapons into lethal firearms.
NCA officers arrested Fortune in July 2024 over the purchase of 35 top-venting blank firearms (TVBF), three antique firearms and more than 1,000 bullets, as well as the manufacture of a 3D-printed submachine gun. He was arrested again in January 2026 while on bail after Avon and Somerset Police found a Glock-type pistol and a revolver hidden in a bush in Longwell Green.
Digital and financial evidence showed Fortune was in close contact with Gerard Dagnall, 33, of Norris Green, Liverpool. Dagnall had tried to smuggle eight handguns from Belgium into the UK. Following a separate NCA investigation, he was sentenced to eight years and three months in prison in November 2024.
Messages showed that Fortune was due to receive some of the guns Dagnall had collected abroad and was brokering deals for Dagnall to sell guns to other criminals. Fortune sent him a 3D-printed FGC9 submachine gun through the post, along with a video of himself test-firing it in a wood.
A search of Fortune’s home uncovered blank bullets, cartridges, cases and primers in various stages of conversion. His bank accounts showed that he spent several thousand pounds on blank firearms between 2022 and 2024.
Fortune admitted two counts of firearms possession, two counts of possessing ammunition, and offences involving converting, making, selling or transferring firearms, as well as conspiracy to import firearms. Around 4,300 TVBFs were surrendered during two amnesties in 2025 and 2026.
