Nine people have been arrested charges of gun trafficking and weapons charges, the New Jersey Attorney General announced today.
Some of the guns seized with regard to these indictments have been connected with past homicides and a narcotics investigation, said New Jersey Attorney General Paula T. Dow.
Officials said five of the men are responsible for a trafficking network that brought scores of guns from Virginia and sold them to Trenton gangs.
The leader, Trenton resident Trayle Beasley, is charged with leading a gun trafficking network, which is a first-degree crime and could result in up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.
The other defendants include an unnamed Glassboro, N.J., man charged with selling assault weapons and a Fort Dix soldier who illegally mailed a handgun from Texas to two other defendants in New Jersey, and brought two more handguns illegally into New Jersey.
The indictment is a result of what Dow called a "historic partnership" between the New Jersey State Police, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Division on Criminal Justice, and various other investigative agencies.
"Firearms trafficking investigations are a priority for ATF in New Jersey," said Matthew W. Horace, Special Agent in Charge of the ATF's Newark Field Division. Praising the bureau's partnership with New Jersey Police, he continued, "As long as criminals continue to bring illegal firearms and crime guns into the State of New Jersey, we will continue to utilize every resource at our disposal to protect the public against the end result of these schemes."
