NorthIowaToday.com

Founded in 2010

News & Entertainment for Mason City, Clear Lake & the Entire North Iowa Region

ATF confiscates crooks and guns in Chicago

gunCHICAGO ― More than 100 assorted pistols, revolvers, rifles, and shotguns have been seized and 14 Chicago area defendants are facing federal firearms charges as a result of an investigation that ended this week and was led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

ATF agents, together with Chicago police and other state and local law enforcement partners, executed arrest and search warrants yesterday and seized 17 firearms from a residence in Gary, Ind. The investigation, which began in January, relied in part on three confidential informants, including one who posed as a broker for an individual who sold firearms overseas.

Nine defendants were arrested Wednesday while three others were already in state custody.Nine separate criminal complaints were unsealed charging 12 defendants with being felons-inpossession of firearms, one with dealing firearms without a federal license, and one with illegal possession of a machine gun with an obliterated serial number. Those arrested yesterday remain in federal custody pending detention hearings, which Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole scheduled for Thursday and Friday in U.S. District Court.

This investigation is the culmination of ATF’s 2014 Firearms Trafficking and Violent Crime Strategy, also known as the “Chicago Initiative,” a four-month mission involving concentrated resources and efforts to attack violent crime associated with illegal firearms and narcotics. During the broader initiative, and including yesterday’s developments, ATF agents arrested 90 state and federal defendants, executed 25 search warrants, and seized more than 270 firearms, as well as seized more than four kilograms of marijuana, more than a kilogram of heroin, and nearly a kilogram each of powder cocaine and crack cocaine.

“This investigation, coupled with our enhanced efforts over the last four months, makes a difference by reducing the potential for violence that is associated with the illegal possession and sale of firearms,” said Carl J. Vasilko, Special Agent-in-Charge of ATF’s Chicago Field Division.

“Every gun we take out of the hands of individuals who allegedly possess and sell them illegally helps reduce the risk of violent crimes occurring with those weapons,” said Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said: “You have heard me say it repeatedly and I will say it again, we have too many illegal guns flooding our streets. But every little bit helps, and certainly this mission and confiscating as many weapons as we did will keep our communities safer.”

The Illinois State Police, the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, the Lake County, Ind., Sheriff’s Department, and task force officers from the Indiana State Police, and the Gary, Ind., Police Department also assisted in the investigation.

According to the complaints, in March of this year, one of the confidential informants (CI-3) identified an individual known as “Batman,” who agents later identified as JOHN THOMAS, as one of CI-3’s sources of illegally obtained firearms. CI-3 and Thomas had previously agreed that CI-3 would pay Thomas approximately $100 for every handgun and $150 for every long gun purchase that Thomas arranged for CI-3. Thomas allegedly arranged firearms transactions between CI-3 and other defendants, including ANTHONY LOGAN, who in turn allegedly arranged additional firearms transactions between CI-3 and other defendants. CI-3 also allegedly purchased firearms directly from STEVE THOMAS and WESLEY PICKETT. During these controlled purchases with the defendants, CI-3 posed as a firearms broker for an individual who sold firearms overseas. The complaint affidavits together detail 45 firearms that CI-3 purchased during the investigation. All of those guns were among a total of 108 firearms that were purchased or seized during the investigation.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Even more news:

Copyright 2024 – Internet Marketing Pros. of Iowa, Inc.
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x