Federal prosecutors announced a major New York City gun and drug trafficking bust involving four defendants caught on camera allegedly selling firearms to undercover NYPD officers.
A seven-count indictment charges defendants David Mccann, Tajhai Jones, both 28, Raymond Minaya, 26, and Calvin Tabron, 25, with allegedly conspiring to illegally traffic more than 50 firearms. Mccann and Minaya are also charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine base.
Mccann is additionally charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl. He allegedly introduced thousands of potentially fatal doses into the community.
At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said the case was one of the first prosecutions in the nation – and the first unsealed indictment in New York – under the bipartisan SAFER Communities Act. Among other reforms designed to bolster school safety, the legislation signed into law in June by President Biden made federal straw purchasing and trafficking criminal offenses, allowing prosecutors to target dangerous illegal gunrunners.
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Among other provisions, it creates a standalone firearm trafficking conspiracy offense, which the government has charged in this case to hold accountable those who conspire to illegally sell firearms. The act provides for sentences of up to 15 years’ imprisonment.
The defendants engaged in multiple transactions involving the sale of at least 50 illegal firearms in Brooklyn between January 2022 and August 2022, prosecutors said.
They allegedly sold these firearms in broad daylight from vehicles in and around New York City Housing Authority’s Breukelen Houses, which are located across the street from a church and blocks away from a preschool and grade school in Canarsie, Brooklyn. They would often carry the guns they trafficked in whatever they could find, including gloves and shopping bags, prosecutors said. Two members of the gun-trafficking operation obtained the firearms in Virginia and then transported them to New York to be sold on the streets of Brooklyn.
Some of the firearms had defaced serial numbers or were made from ghost gun kits, making them harder for law enforcement to trace, Peace said.
The defendants sold the guns and drugs to an undercover officer who recorded many of the transactions, according to the indictment. The undercover officer told the defendants that he was a drug dealer who needed guns and that he was also going to resell some of the guns that were provided to him.
Despite this knowledge, the conspirators continued to sell large quantities of drugs and guns to the undercover officer without hesitation, prosecutors said.
Law enforcement have linked the firearms sold in the conspiracy to several shootings in Brooklyn.
On June 22, 2022, Minaya allegedly sold an undercover officer a Glock 30, .45 caliber handgun. The investigation revealed that this gun was used in an August 16, 2021, shooting in Bedford-Stuyvesant, during which armed perpetrators shot into a large crowd gathered for a family day celebration. In total, eight individuals were struck by gunfire.
Another gun allegedly trafficked by the conspirators – a Glock 43, 9-millimeter caliber handgun – was linked to a December 18, 2021, shooting of an individual in Canarsie, in the blocks surrounding the Breukelen Houses complex. That individual sustained multiple gunshot wounds to his body, including his right hand, shoulder, neck, and the base of his skull.
When agents arrested Minaya in Brooklyn Wednesday morning, he was in illegal possession of two handguns, including one with an extended magazine, prosecutors said. He allegedly threw one of the guns out a window in an attempt to hide it, though both guns were recovered.
"As alleged, the defendants are responsible for attempting to flood the streets of Brooklyn with over 50 deadly weapons, including ghost guns, as well as narcotics, feeding the cycles of gun violence and drug abuse," Peace said in a statement. "As the first prosecution utilizing new federal legislation in New York, and one of the first in the country, these arrests demonstrate this Office’s commitment to utilize all tools available to more effectively stop gun traffickers from endangering our community."
