NEW YORK — A group of gun traffickers sold more than 50 firearms to an undercover cop in Brooklyn, making the sales in a crowded waterfront park and on a playground, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The dealers brought many of the weapons from Virginia, and in some cases, the guns they sold had already been used for violence, authorities said — one was linked to a half-dozen gang-related shootings, including a 2021 bloodbath at a Bedford-Stuyvesant family day celebration that left eight people wounded.
U.S. Attorney Breon Peace and the NYPD announced the indictment of four suspects on Wednesday, describing the case as the first public indictment in New York under a bipartisan gun reform law signed by President Joe Biden last June.
The four suspects include Raymond Minaya, 26, and David McCann, 28, of Brooklyn, as well as Tajhai Jones, 28, and Calvin Tabron, 25, of Virginia.
McCann ran the ring, which Peace described as “a network of firearms traffickers that endangered our community.”
He introduced he undercover officer to his fellow conspirators, who got the guns from several sources — retailers in Virginia, build-it-yourself “ghost gun” kits, and from criminals who were already using them in Brooklyn, Peace said.
“They thought they were selling these guns to a drug dealer,” Peace said.
The sales were done in public, with many of them happening on the Canarsie Pier over the summer, where children played with their families and kayakers took to the waters.
“Almost all of that occurred in the afternoon, in broad daylight, with a dealer sometimes boldly walking down the street, a public street, carrying bags of dangerous weapons right by residences,” Peace said.
Minaya sold one gun that was linked to a string of shootings, including the Aug. 16, 2021, shooting at the family day celebration, which was sparked by a rivalry between gangs from East New York and Bedford-Stuyvesant, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said.
Another weapon sold by Minaya was used in a Dec. 18, 2021, shooting near the Breukelen Houses in Canarsie, that left a man repeatedly shot in the hand, shoulder, neck and the base of the skull, prosecutors said.
The suspects were all charged with firearm trafficking conspiracy under the new Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which Peace said makes it easier to bring federal charges with a strict, 15-year sentence.
The conspirators also sold the undercover cop a kilo and a half of fentanyl, and another kilo and a half of fentanyl-laced crack, authorities said.
Minaya and Jones have extensive violent pasts, federal prosecutors said. Minaya was out on parole after a 2017 attempted murder conviction, and he got into a gunfight in the Bay View Houses in March, according to a court filing.
Jones, meanwhile, was convicted of abduction and other crimes in Virginia, after a violent 2016 home invasion robbery.
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