Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said 31-year-old Michael Bassier was the ringleader of the operation that snared eight men and women in three states. The gun used to kill Officer Brian Moore earlier this year was one of 23 also stolen from a Georgia pawnshop; nine of those guns have been recovered at crime scenes in New York. During the course of the investigation, the suspect made 12 trips by Chinatown-based buses to Atlanta and six trips by vehicle to Pittsburgh to purchase semi-automatic pistols and assault weapons, they said. “This is not about the Chinatown buses, this is about these guns”.
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“Illegal guns continue to be the source of heartache and pain to New Yorkers”, said NYPD Chief of Department James P. O’Neill. In a recorded phone conversation, Bassier can be heard saying, “Listen, I’m walking through Manhattan, right?”
“We are seeing the tragic effects of gun violence every day”, Thompson said at a news conference. It was the latest in a series of cases aimed at stemming the steady flow of guns bought in states with lax gun-control laws for resale to criminals in New York.
Thompson announced the charges Wednesday while standing behind a table filled with a few of the 112 handguns, shotguns and assault-style rifles sold to an undercover New York City police officer for a total of more than $130,000. “These guns have been taken out of commission but there’s a lot more work that has to be done”.
A 541-count indictment charges Bassier and his seven cohorts with conspiracy, criminal sale of a firearm, criminal possession of a weapon and other charges. If convicted, Bassier faces up to 25 years in prison on the top count. He then brought the guns back to the city.
Between September 2014 and September 2015, the defendants allegedly conspired to sell guns purchased in Georgia and Pennsylvania to an NYPD undercover detective in Brooklyn.
Thompson said the bust underscores the need for the U.S. Senate to pass a pending bill by Sen.
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“There’s no real federal statute that really deals with this gun trafficking, like what these folks were doing”, the DA said.
