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Monday, March 05, 2007

Tale Of 501 Guns

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posted by Bob at Monday, March 05, 2007

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A TALE OF 501 GUNS
An ex-cop turns to gun trafficking, spreading his deadly wares to criminals and terrorism suspects nationwide, including Minnesota. Hundreds of his weapons remain in unknown hands.
BY SHARON COHEN
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio

There were 501 guns in all, the government says — revolvers and pistols, Glocks and Rugers, a few rifles, too — a giant cache of firearms suitable for sport or self-protection.

Or felonies.

Or terrorism.

Five hundred and one guns, tied to one man — 35-year-old Mark Nelson, a former Columbus cop who masterminded a conspiracy that flooded the streets with weapons.

Nelson insists he didn't knowingly do anything wrong. But prosecutors say he enlisted his family and others — including a drug dealer — to illegally acquire 501 guns, then directly or indirectly sell many of them.

And soon after — within days, in a few cases — some of these guns began turning up in the wrong hands and the wrong places, including Minnesota:

• A Raven Arms .25-caliber pistol was used in a Brooklyn, N.Y., shooting.

• A Ruger 9 mm handgun was found on a man charged with crack possession in Washington, D.C.

• A Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol was recovered in Youngstown, Ohio, in a car driven by a man inexplicably wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a winter face mask — in May.

• In Minneapolis, a 9 mm pistol was discovered under a trash can by police responding to a report that young men were pointing guns at people.

It's all part of the shadowy world of gun trafficking, where lies, stealth and cold cash make it alarmingly easy for deadly weapons to be bought and sold, only to surface in crimes days, months, even years later.

This is the story of how one trafficking case unfolded and how a handful of people, bogus paperwork, the lure of profit and the constant demand for weapons combined for a scheme that could haunt investigators for decades. More than 300 guns remain missing.

"They're lost in the system," federal prosecutor Doug Squires said. "The point is, we don't know where they are — and that's the real danger."

ALLEGED TERRORIST PLOT

At 5:59 a.m. Aug. 13, 2005, a young Somali man, Mohammed Dirie, was stopped as he crossed the Peace Bridge from Buffalo, N.Y., to Fort Erie, Ontario.

Duct-taped to his thigh was a 9 mm pistol.

Agents also found a second gun on his thigh and an ammunition clip and bullets in his socks. His companion had a gun tucked in his waistband.

The two were imprisoned for illegal gun possession, but that wasn't the end of it. Last summer, they were among 18 people charged in an alleged terrorist bomb plot in Canada. The two also were accused of importing weapons and ammunition.

The Taurus PT-111 pistol, authorities said, was traced back to Nelson's group.

How Dirie bought the gun is a mystery.

But one fact is not: It was purchased within five days of his arrest at the border.

DEALER MISUNDERSTOOD?

When a federal judge recently sentenced Nelson to the maximum 10 years in prison, he called the former officer's behavior "a great risk to the public."

In a voice choking with emotion, Nelson told the judge he had "high respect for the law." He portrayed himself as a man misunderstood and wronged.

Nelson claimed he was trying to sell guns as a business to supplement his police disability — he wasn't working because of back problems sustained on the job. He said he was misled by a firearms dealer who continued to sell him weapons even though the man knew it was illegal.

Nelson also said the dealer told him to have others sign the legal paperwork for guns that would go to him. That's known as a "straw purchase," where an intermediary poses as the buyer for someone who can't pass the background check.

Nelson, a police officer for almost eight years, couldn't buy a gun himself because he was facing a charge in a road rage incident. So he enlisted others to claim they were the purchasers.

His wife, Phaedra, for instance, said she bought 168 guns. His brother Ricky bought 83, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His father-in-law and two other men bought the others. All seven have pleaded guilty.

As proof he didn't hide his business, Nelson noted he bought and sold weapons to Columbus police officers, and when a customer traded in a gun and wouldn't remove the bullets, Nelson took it to detectives for a fingerprint check. Nelson made those comments in a letter to the judge days before sentencing — written, he said, against his lawyer's advice.

Federal agents paint a far more sinister picture.

They say Nelson traveled to Minnesota and Washington, D.C., to make deals and sold guns from his car trunk, hotel rooms and gun shows, where an undercover ATF informant bought 26 weapons — even though the informant told him he had a "lot of felonies" and planned to resell them to drug dealers.

"He had no regard for who the guns were going to," said Wayne Dixie, the Columbus ATF chief. "He didn't care because it was a moneymaking scheme. Maybe there was some prestige, too. He's known as the guy to go to for guns. … 'You need a quick firearm, you can come to me. I'm your man.' "

Agents also point out that when Nelson was arrested last summer, he seemed braced for trouble: He was wearing a bulletproof vest.

GUNS IN ODD PLACES

So far, law enforcement officials have traced 51 guns.

In Silver Spring, Md., a .25-caliber pistol turned up outside a high school. Witnesses said one student pointed the gun at another student's head; the incident was believed connected to the Bloods street gang.

In Columbus, a 9 mm pistol was involved in the death of a man in a domestic dispute.

In Newark, N.J., a .22-caliber Derringer ended up in a strange spot: the Essex County Jail property room. A ballistics test was negative. Inmates and staff were interviewed. Cameras were checked. Still no leads on how it got there.

NO BOUNDARIES

Nelson's weapons have surfaced in six states — New York, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Maryland and Ohio — as well as Washington, D.C., and the Canadian border.

Ohio residents have been known to funnel illegal guns to the East Coast, partly because of their proximity to big cities such as New York and Washington, where it's difficult to buy weapons.

But gun trafficking knows no geographic boundaries, said John Firman, director of research for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "It's rampant. It's a national problem … and very often it goes unrecognized," he said.

"It's also a movable feast. Gun traffickers aren't stupid, they move on," Firman added. "The corridors of transportation in this country are wide open. Nobody stops me at the border of Kansas and says, 'Let me look in your trunk.' "

Many Southern states, where gun laws tend to be less stringent, have long been regarded as part of an "iron pipeline" feeding weapons to gangs and other criminals in big cities in the North.

In Alabama last year, 11 people were arrested and more than 700 guns seized or purchased in undercover operations at flea markets and a gun show.

Two other people later were charged. Investigators linked hundreds of guns to crimes, including a murder-for-hire scheme in New York and the attempted murder of a Chicago police officer.

A relatively small number of people can cause enormous damage. About 1 percent of licensed dealers account for nearly 60 percent of all crime guns sold in this country, said Joe Vince, a former ATF agent who runs a consulting firm.

Like so many businesses, trafficking is fueled by supply and demand: The more desperate the buyer, the higher the price. A drug dealer, gang member or another criminal in a city where gun laws are strict will fork over three, four, even five times the store price for an unused weapon.

"When they get a new gun from a box, they know it hasn't been used in a crime, so there's no investigative trail that can trip them up," said Patrick Berarducci, a 30-year ATF veteran who recently retired to become police chief in Boardman, Ohio. "What they're buying is not the gun. What they're buying is the anonymity that goes with it."

DRUG DEALS SURFACE

In Newark, N.J., a 9 mm pistol was found in a car along with a dead man and about four kilos of cocaine. Another was found on two teens suspected in a cocaine-related robbery.

In Brooklyn, N.Y, a 7.62 mm rifle was recovered on a man carrying 75 grams of marijuana. He was identified as a member of the Bloods street gang.

In New York City, a .38-caliber revolver turned up with cocaine, marijuana and fake IDs after police stopped a car and two men tried to flee.

In Columbus, a 9 mm pistol was found along with suspected marijuana, crack, cocaine and drug paraphernalia after police approaching a car reported to be stolen used Mace to subdue one man who tried to run.

FALSE PAPERWORK

Nelson pleaded guilty to a single charge of falsifying paperwork, which states he had acquired more than 300 guns illegally. (Federal officials put the total count at 501; Nelson's lawyer claims they overcounted.)

The ATF has recovered more than 100 guns, mostly from his home or the undercover ATF informant, along with the 51 others found on the streets.

Nelson met with federal agents several times to track the missing guns, but it did no good, said Squires, the prosecutor: "He kept things from us. He minimized and evaded. He didn't know his customers. He didn't know their true identities."

For example, Squires said, Nelson didn't tell them he was robbed of his guns when he met with some prospective buyers in a hotel room outside Washington, D.C.

Nelson ordered guns from Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and Florida — sometimes on the Internet — and had them shipped to a licensed firearms dealer in Ohio, Robert Cook, who was in on the deal, making $10 for each gun, according to the ATF.

Nelson wasn't trying to get rich, said Mark Collins, his lawyer. "He was not trafficking drugs making $2 or $3 million," he said. He estimates Nelson probably made less than $40,000.

Squires, the prosecutor, said that while two men who were part of the scheme did receive some guns, Nelson's family did not.

"They knew what they were doing was wrong," he said. "But they were shocked by who the end users were and that they were the portals of crime."

Some crimes occurred quickly. Others took months, or more than a year.

"With guns, there is no shelf life," said Steve Horwood, a detective with the Provincial Weapons Enforcement unit in Ontario who traced the Canada pistol. "Other contraband — alcohol, tobacco, drugs — they're gone immediately once they get in circulation. With guns, you can keep them 20 years and kill as many people as you want."

While 51 guns have surfaced on the streets, federal agents say more may have been used in crimes; they hear only of those traced by law enforcement. Large police departments track weapons, but many smaller ones don't have the resources.

Two young ATF agents following the gun trail said they wouldn't be surprised if weapons from this case trickle in for the rest of their careers.

Collins, the lawyer, said Nelson never intended this to happen and was "distraught and upset" when he learned where guns had surfaced.

Squires doesn't buy it. He said Nelson was a police officer, a man who took guns away from criminals, then turned around and put them in their hands.

"He should have known better," he said, "and he did know better."

9:11 AM  

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