ELI5: How does one of the worlds most advanced pieces of evidence collection equipment end up in the hands of a teenager?

I mean, a dna sequencer is supposed to be in a lab, not in some random kids house. They werent like "oh well, we have extras", a random kid got their hands on what is probably a 500,000 dollar piece of equipment for a "school project". Whaaaaat?<br>Context: if you live under a rock, theres a kid who supposedly solved a decades long murder using a dna sequencer he got from craigslist.