PA Bill Number: HB829
Title: In preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Description: An Act amending the act of April 12, 1951 (P.L.90, No.21), known as the Liquor Code, in preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Last Action: Signed in House
Last Action Date: Jul 3, 2024
SC gun-smuggling operation shipped guns to Bloods gang in NY :: 07/27/2018
COLUMBIA — A gun-smuggling ring from the Palmetto State shipped guns to the Bloods gang in New York, officials said Monday in federal court.
The guns traveled by car along what is known as the “Iron Pipeline” — routes along Interstate 95 from Southern states, including South Carolina, with weak gun laws to Northern states.(Photo: Mongkol Nitirojsakul / EyeEm, Getty Images/EyeEm)
The guns traveled by car along what is known as the “Iron Pipeline” — routes along Interstate 95 from Southern states, including South Carolina, with weak gun laws to Northern states. Guns bought at gun shops or gun shows in South Carolina for $500, for example, can be sold for two or three times that price or more in the Northern states, where it is more difficult to buy guns.
The gun-smuggling ring operated out of South Carolina’s rural heartland — in the Bishopville area, between Columbia and Florence — and shipped its wares to New York City, as well as to Maryland and the District of Columbia area, according to court records and testimony in a court hearing before Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett.
At the hearing, Gossett made no immediate ruling on whether to grant bond to James William Smith III, 24, of Bishopville, one of three defendants in the case. Smith has two aliases — “Fat Papi” and “Head,” according to court records.
In an indictment handed down by a federal grand jury, Smith is charged with four of 18 counts related to illegal gun trafficking involving Taurus, as well as Smith and Wesson handguns.
During the hearing, federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Christopher Baker testified an investigation is ongoing into the guns, which he said the defendants sometimes called “irons,” and indicated others could face federal charges.
In pursuing the defendants, Baker testified investigators used information from the defendants’ cellphones, license plate readers along highways and GPS locator information.
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The defendants used “straw purchasers” to buy the guns legally in South Carolina and, then, transported them to New York. A “straw purchaser” buys guns at flea markets, gun shows or gun shops, then transfers the weapons to the trafficker to smuggle elsewhere. A “straw purchase” becomes illegal when its purpose is to transfer the weapon to a gun-runner.
Baker did not say where, exactly, the guns were bought. However, a search warrant in the case says that two “Diamondback” assault-type rifles, which can carry clips with 31 bullets, were purchased “after a gun show in Columbia.”
Baker added many of the South Carolina guns went to a “Bloods street gang in Youngstown, New York.”
Each gun-trafficking charge carries a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Many of the 26 guns listed in the indictment were handguns, including various models of Glocks. Others, including the P-TAC model TAC-15, look like an assault rifle. The TAC-15 costs about $400 to $600, according to various prices at internet shopping sites.
Two of the three people charged in the indictment — Dante Tyler and Montrell Jermain Smith, both of the Bishopville area — were indicted in January. But the U.S. attorney’s office in Columbia did not announce the arrests.
According to federal court documents, Tyler has been buying “multiple firearms” in South Carolina since October 2016. Some of those guns since have been used to commit crimes in Maryland and the Washington, D.C., area, the records said.
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