Illegal weapons found for sale on Amazon, eBay, Wish and AliExpress

Third-party sellers on eBay, Wish, AliExpress and Amazon Marketplace are selling banned and illegal weapons to UK consumers for as little as 49p, an investigation by Which? has found.

Following simple searches on the sites, we discovered illegal friction lock batons, zombie knives, swords, knuckle dusters and other items across the marketplaces. 

All of the weapons we found for sale are illegal to own – even in a private home – because they are specified as banned weapons by law, including by the Offensive Weapons Act 2019.

A person caught with one of these products could face arrest and a prison sentence. The sale of such weapons means they could also end up in the wrong hands.

They are also illegal to sell. Government guidance on the law states it is 'an offence for any person to manufacture, sell or hire, offer for sale or hire, expose or have in his possession for the purpose of sale or hire' any banned weapon.

However, we found them for sale on marketplaces with relative ease – throwing into question whether checks for unsafe goods carried out for marketplaces are fit for purpose.

Our guide on how to avoid fake and dangerous products online outlines other dangers you should steer clear of

Illegal batons sold as ‘trekking poles’ on Amazon

On Amazon, we found more than a dozen listings for friction lock batons masquerading as ‘trekking poles'. Some of these listings used special characters in the title such as ‘telescopic bătõň’' or only used the word baton in the artwork – presumably to avoid Amazon’s detection. 

The promotional photography that accompanied these listings clearly indicated that the 64cm ‘trekking poles’ were not intended for use while walking. Some imagery indicated they could be used for self defence and fighting. 

Friction lock batons are a banned offensive weapon.

When we reported our findings to Amazon, is said it had removed all the listings and would take ‘appropriate enforcement’ against the baton sellers, which Amazon described as ‘bad actors’ who had ‘evaded’ its systems.  

A 27-inch zombie knife and a ‘paralysing spray’ on eBay

On eBay we found a variety of illegal swords, zombie knives and knuckle dusters for sale, including a 23-inch steel serrated-edge zombie knife for £27 and a 27-inch zombie blade with a red fire design on the blade for £32. 

One seller was offering a combo deal on a karambit blade and a ‘paralysing spray’ for £13.99. According to eBay’s terms and conditions, none of these items should be for sale.

eBay said it had removed the listings we flagged, adding that it ‘prohibits’ the vast majority of knives from being sold in the UK and would investigate why the items were not blocked for UK buyers.

Illegal butterfly knives on Wish

We found the widest selection of weapons for sale on Wish and AliExpress. A simple search of the term ‘flick knife’ returned dozens of results, many priced at less than £10. Flick knives are illegal.

On Wish we were able to find at least a dozen butterfly knives – blades that open out into a point – even though they are illegal. 

We also found several belt buckle knives priced from £8; a selection of knuckle dusters and a number of concealed blades – including a £1 knife designed to be hidden inside a wallet. Other items included friction lock batons – one of which was disguised within an umbrella. Another was marketed for use in self defence and had more than 30 UK reviews.

Throughout our investigation some listings disappeared on Wish, presumably after being spotted by the platform. But when this happened, they simply reappeared elsewhere – throwing into question whether current checks are fit for purpose. It's not the first time we've found illegal or dangerous products on Wish.com.

Wish said it ‘condemned’ the sale of weapons, which it said was against its terms and conditions for sellers, as well as its moral code. A spokesperson said Wish had removed the reported listings and was ‘exploring remedial action against any offending merchants'.

Find out more: What is Wish.com and is it safe to buy from?

A ‘self defence’ flick knife for less than £3 on AliExpress

On AliExpress we found a large number of flick knives, hidden blades and a raft of ‘self defence rings’ designed to be worn as knuckle dusters – one priced at just 49p. 

AliExpress also targeted us with promotional emails for cut-price blades after we’d searched on the site – including a variety of curved karambit knives. We understand these are not illegal to own, but are illegal to carry in public. One of these was priced at just £1.79.  

We were also sent an email promotion for a knife with a skull design on the blade, priced at £9.63. Worryingly, after we shared our evidence with AliExpress we received yet another promotional email – this one for an illegal ‘self defence’ flick knife priced at £2.83.

AliExpress said it had removed the listings we flagged and was ‘reviewing the accounts of any third-party merchants who might have breached our platform rules'. However, we received two further promotional emails for knives after receiving the first response from AliExpress – which we then flagged to the marketplace.

Marketplaces a known source of banned weapons

Kerry Spence, deputy head of criminal defence at the law firm Hodge Jones & Allen and Caroline Liggins, head of youth team at the practice, are top knife crime lawyers. They said marketplaces were a known source of banned weapons and that, in their view, there should be a ban on selling knives online.

We shared our evidence with them and they confirmed that what we had uncovered were listings for banned and illegal weapons. 

Liggins said: ‘I was shocked, I thought they were going to be expensive and [some] were about £9. We were shocked by how easy it is to buy them. It’s pocket money, isn’t it?

‘When we looked, there were no signs warning about how old you have to be to buy these products and no warnings about what is lawful or unlawful.’

It is illegal to sell blades to anyone under 18. Throughout our investigation we had only one age-related warning – from AliExpress. However, it appeared only once. 

Spence added that she had been involved in a case where a school child had bought ‘hundreds’ of blades from marketplaces using a parent’s bank card. They sold them to other children for ‘protection’ at a markup.

‘The sale of illegal weapons through online marketplaces shouldn’t be allowed. Because where else do they [criminals] buy them? There is no policing of what they sell or who it’s being sold to,’ she said.

Spence added that the marketing of batons as trekking poles on Amazon was ‘ridiculous.

'One of these was 26 inches – that’s a baton, which is an offensive weapon. I’m five-foot two and that would never be long enough for me to use as a walking pole. To my mind it’s illegal to sell it.’

Illegal knives on marketplaces fuelling knife crime

Police forces in the UK have been vocal about the sale of banned weapons and illegal knives on marketplaces and how they are fuelling knife crime. In 2020, the National Police Chiefs’ Council announced a partnership with Wish, indicating the seriousness of the problem.

The council said that ‘the main source of the knives being used on our streets is online’, and that it hoped to ‘cut off the supply of illegal knives at their source'.

At the time, the council said Wish had agreed to voluntarily remove any listings where police believe UK laws have been breached. But our investigation shows illegal knives are still rife on the platform – and very easy to find.

Richard Carr, a former senior Merseyside police detective turned lecturer in policing at Liverpool John Moores University, has experience in investigating violent crime. He said the sale of such weapons can have real-world consequences.

He reviewed our evidence and told us he was surprised to see banned weapons readily available for sale on marketplaces – and at such low prices.

Marketplaces are set up in such a way so that they are ‘platforms’ or facilitators of the sale of products to customers from third parties. But he questioned whether they had a ‘moral’ obligation to do more to prevent the sale of banned weapons.

‘I feel confident that the products I’ve been shown fit within the definition of banned knives or weapons. 

‘The way that some of them are being marketed [such as using skull or combat imagery] is designed to appeal to a certain mentality. You can clearly see the significance of knives like this being sold [online.]

‘I’m surprised from a moral perspective that websites are [allowing the sale of] these types of products.

‘When weapons of this nature get into the hands of people who have criminal intent, then that outcome can be catastrophic,’ he said.

Carr was also surprised by the low cost of some of the banned weapons we found, which meant they were theoretically ‘available’ to children for not much money. He also made the point that they are not ‘price prohibitive’ – meaning that they are available to anyone.

He said a marketplace would have a hard time convincing him the weapons were being sold for a legitimate reason: 'I imagine the public would agree.'

A need for greater responsibility

Which? also reported its findings to the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), who welcomed the investigation and the 'concerning evidence around the ease with which members of the public can buy dangerous and banned items from some of our most popular online retailers'. It said: 'Trading standards departments across the country work closely with online marketplaces, and illicit listings are removed by platforms every day.'

Which? believes our latest investigation shows that online marketplaces must take more responsibility and carry out better checks and monitoring on dangerous items.

Sue Davies, Which? Head of Consumer Protection Policy, said: 'It is disturbing that our latest investigation has uncovered illegal weapons being sold on online marketplaces at extraordinarily cheap prices and that these tech firms are also pushing additional dangerous items to people. This raises big question marks over the checks and monitoring being done by these platforms. 

'It’s clear that online marketplaces need to take more responsibility and prevent illegal weapons appearing on their sites.'product