Investigators are shocked after they claim a man was selling ghost gun parts on a white supremacist chat room from his prison cell. NBC New York’s Melissa Colorado reports.
In what was a stunning gun bust, the Manhattan district attorney said a neo-Nazi prisoner allegedly sold ghost guns and parts from behind bars — only getting caught after one of his customers was an undercover NYPD officer.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the white supremacist went online and sold ghost gun parts, unknowingly to the undercover officer, all while he was locked up in a federal prison a thousand miles away in Louisiana.
"We see this sad and tragic combination far too often. The intersection of gun violence and gun trafficking and hate and extremism," said Bragg.
Watch NBC 4 free wherever you are
WATCH HEREAn encrypted messaging app that had once been used by a racist mass shooter who killed 10 people (all African-American) at a Buffalo grocery store led investigators to the man who was selling the ghost gun parts from his prison cell.
"Things that are happening in chatrooms today can be in our streets tomorrow," said Bragg.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox with NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
SIGN UP Police said 24-year-old Hayden Espinosa was a moderator of a white supremacist channel that featured "vile rhetoric, neo-Nazi iconography," according to Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism.
Espinosa was advertising and selling 3-D printed ghost gun parts through cellphones smuggled into prison, prosecutors allege. His operation came crashing down, investigators said, when he sold gun parts to an undercover NYPD officer.
News
"He attempted to sell a Glock-19 handgun and finally sold, we allege, two silencers," Bragg said.
In 2023, the NYPD confiscated nearly 6,500 illegal guns from New York City streets, and the department is on track to hit the same number again in 2024.
Investigators said the indictment highlights how easy it is for criminals to use 3-D printers to make and sell these deadly switch inserts, which can transform pistols into machine guns.
"Devices such as these are a danger in our community and that’s why we are working on cases like this with our partners," said Special Agent Bryan Miller, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Two months ago, DA Bragg called on YouTube to take down videos that teaches users how to make ghost guns and to stop suggesting videos about guns to minors. In response, YouTube set stricter rules around gun videos and set age restrictions on videos about ghost guns.
Espinoza was released from federal prison in Louisiana last week only to be arrested again for allegedly selling ghost gun parts. He is set to be extradited to New York and will face a judge in Lower Manhattan on June 24. Attorney information for Espinoza was not immediately available.
