NYC Gun Ring Bust: 6 Indicted For Smuggling More Than 100 Weapons Into NYC

NEW YORK CITY, NY — Six men have been indicted for operating a multi-state gun-smuggling operation that resulted in the sale of more than 100 firearms to an undercover NYPD officer, law enforcement officials announced Wednesday.

New York City residents Shavar Stuckey, 31, and Levon Jackson, 30, Devon Heatley, 32, and South Carolina residents Troy Allen, 32, Shakial Shephard, 22, and Liq’uel Robinson, 19, were hit with fourth-degree conspiracy and first, second and third-degree criminal weapons sales charges in an indictment that totaled 203 counts, according to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

Between December 14, 2015, and March 7, 2017, Stuckey and Jackson sold 105 firearms — including 75 semi-automatic pistols, 21 revolvers, 5 assault rifles, and 4 shotguns — to an undercover NYPD detective, according to law enforcement officials. Heatley, a resident of Harlem, was involved in three of the gun sales, according to an indictment.

Stuckey and Jackson purchased the firearms from South Carolina residents Allen, Shephard and Robinson. The South Carolina men would buy the weapons at local gun retailers in South Carolina and transport them to New York by taking a discount bus into the city, according to an indictment.

"Today marks the third time in the past year that I have stood with our partners at the NYPD in front of a cache of deadly weapons funneled into New York from an Iron Pipeline state," District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement. "In this case, like others before it, discount buses were the vehicles of choice for transporting weapons north along the I-95 corridor."

The weapons were place on a long table as NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill and Vance announced the indictment.

The 42 transactions took place in the detective's car at different locations in Harlem and the Bronx, according to law enforcement officials. Sales were often coordinated over the phone and by text message, officials said.

"Those who traffic illegal guns to New York City will be arrested and prosecuted," Commissioner O’Neill said in a statement. "Our detectives continue to disrupt the flow of illegal guns into New York, and with the District Attorney’s Office bring the most rigorous charges."

Photo by NYPD