Latest news with #Glocks
Time of India
21-05-2025
- Time of India
Heroin worth Rs 12 crore, arms cache seized from Rajasthan's Sriganganagar
Sriganganagar police apprehended five individuals linked to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, seizing a substantial stash of foreign-made firearms and heroin valued at Rs 12 crore JAIPUR: Sriganganagar police Tuesday arrested five accused with alleged links to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and seized a huge cache of foreign-made weapons and heroin worth Rs 12 crore. Police said the gang was being handled by a member of the Bishnoi gang from aboard and may have received the consignment from Pakistan. Police recovered seven pistols — six Glocks and one Turkey-made Zigana — along with 13 magazines and 32 live cartridges. Each of these pistols is estimated to be worth around Rs 15 lakh in the black market. Officers also suspect the confiscated heroin to have been smuggled from Pakistan. A car and a motorcycle used for trafficking were also seized. Key highlights Five arrested by Sriganganagar police with alleged links to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang. Foreign-made weapons seized, including six Glock pistols and one Zigana pistol, along with 13 magazines and 32 live cartridges. Heroin worth Rs 12 crore confiscated, suspected to be smuggled from Pakistan. A car and motorcycle used for trafficking were also seized during the operation. The module was allegedly controlled by a Bishnoi gang member based abroad. Police suspect cross-border smuggling routes were used for the consignment. Weapons are estimated to be worth Rs 15 lakh each in the black market. The case is being investigated for links tointernational drug and arms trafficking.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Yahoo
Memphis mother warns about homemade machine gun that killed her son: ‘Our city is in trouble'
MEMPHIS, Tenn — A mother is sounding the alarm about illegal devices being used to turn Glocks into weapons of war. She suffered the loss of her son because of it. It was January 1, a Saturday afternoon when snow that had blanketed Memphis was starting to melt. Debra Seaton was at her daughter's apartment in Orange Mound when she says some woman tried to fight her. Her son, LaCurtis Waller, saw and tried to intervene. 'You say something to them, and they ready to shoot you,' Seaton said. Within a matter of seconds, she saw a gun. 'I knew this was something powerful. It was just so loud, and it was like pop, pop, pop, everywhere,' she said. 'There were so many people out there. There were people running for their lives. Those people were actually running for their lives. There were children out there. My granddaughter was out there.' The panic soon settled, and the ringing in her ears was then interrupted. 'I heard this young man screaming that Curt was dead,' Seaton said. 'To see your child in the streets, shot and face down. It the snow and the ice. This was murder. Cold-blooded murder.' Memphis Murder Map 2025 Police said one other person was also shot that day. Seaton believes they were hit by a stray bullet. Police said they have issued one warrant in connection to the incident, but are still working to find the person who killed Waller. 'When [witnesses] were talking about it, they were saying that it was a Glock. A Glock with a switch on it,' Seaton said. WREG Investigators have told you about a switch. It's a tiny, illegal device criminals are attaching to their Glock to convert it into a machine gun. Criminals creating their own machine guns with switch Law enforcement continues to call it an emerging threat. They showed us how hard it is to control even for one of their most experienced shooters. Since 2021, the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission says Memphis police seized more than 500 switches. Despite the danger and destruction they pose, those caught with one have only been facing the lowest felony charge at the state level. A bill is now headed to the governor's desk to change that. If signed, it will increase the state penalty to a class C felony. Mother lobbies for tougher punishments for people putting switches on firearms A move one Memphis mother, Janice Walker, lobbied for. She recently told us her son was shot multiple times by a Glock with a switch attached to it. She was forced to say her final goodbye in the hospital's ICU. 'The doctor had to literally pop his heart with her hands to get him going again,' Walker said. 'I put my hand on his chest until he stopped. I had to immediately leave the room, because I could no longer breathe.' Seaton said she saw Walker's story. 'I sympathize with her. I said somebody needs to come together and get something done,' Seaton said. 'Our city is in trouble. We are in trouble.' Seaton believes there must be a call to action. She'd like to see more churches and mentors getting involved and intervening in young people's lives to break the cycle. Otherwise, she said this will keep happening and will keep destroying families. 'They took away a good man. A good kid. A good-hearted kid,' Seaton said. 'The guys in the neighborhood, who were messed up and homeless, he would bring them into my daughter's house, sit them down at the table and feed them.' She said Waller helped everyone. 'He was helping everyone! Even in the midst of his struggles, and he was struggling,' she said. 'Big Curt was the protector of his pride. He protected his grandma. He protected his cousins.' Her protector and loving son was full of love and mercy. 'Let me tell you something. Whoever that was, if they shot him and he lived, you know what he would have did? Later on down the road, he would have forgave him. That's how he was,' Seaton said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Yahoo
North Florida gun dealer gets prison for trafficking as smugglers move weapons overseas
While he fights his sentence, a North Florida gun dealer faces almost 12 years in prison for selling more than 100 guns that were apparently among thousands that criminals illegally shipped overseas. Melrose resident Matthew Easton, 35, pleaded guilty in January to gun trafficking and acknowledged that as a licensed dealer he understood a 21-year-old man paying cash for dozens of weapons at a time didn't really plan to own them himself, as the law required. Easton's buyer was a middleman moving firearms to another middleman who, according to a lawyer's court filing, provided guns to an illegal immigrant wanted by Interpol who admitted in court papers to smuggling firearms to the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Puerto Rico in 2023 and 2024. Guatemalan fugitive Ricardo Fermin Sune-Giron and people he worked with 'trafficked thousands of firearms,' U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in January, after Sune-Giron pleaded guilty in Tampa to crimes that happened while he was living illegally in Central Florida, using his brother's name. Another case: Plans to smuggle guns to Venezuela, plot murder end in prison for Jacksonville immigrants Easton didn't deal with Sune-Giron and court records don't suggest he even knew the fugitive's name. Easton's name isn't mentioned in a separate court case against Sune-Giron that unfolded at about the same time. But it was obvious that Easton's guns were going to someone beside the person paying him, his plea agreement said, pointing out a time when co-defendant Derick Perez Diaz of Orlando discussed buying a dozen Glock 9mm pistols from Easton ― ostensibly for his own use ― and said "let me call my guy to double check with him." When Perez Diaz texted an hour later that "he confirmed he's bringing me the rest of the cash," the plea agreement said, Easton replied: "excellent. pickup today?" In the three months from October 2023 to December 2023, Easton sold Perez Diaz at least 107 guns, the "vast majority" being Glock 9mm handguns, his plea agreement said. Easton told investigators he tried to show Perez Diaz how to become a license gun dealer himself, the agreement said, but added that Easton told an undercover agent he'd sold 100 Glocks and 20 AKs to a group of Puerto Ricans in Orlando and that he thought they planned to resell the guns somewhere further south. The agreement said Easton, whose Melrose home is part of a rural community straddling Clay, Putnam, Alachua and Bradford county lines, agreed repeatedly to drive to Ocala to complete deals with Perez Diaz. The "guy" Perez Diaz bought for was Ernesto Vazquez, a then-22-year-old warehouse worker and one-time evangelist from Seminole County whose lawyer said in a sentencing memo that Sune-Giron had befriended Vazquez when the young man and his girlfriend needed a place to live. Sune-Giron, who had an Interpol 'red notice' warrant for robbery charges in Guatemala, ended up getting scores of guns through Vazquez, who first connected with Perez Diaz through the website according to Vazquez's lawyer's memo. A U.S. Attorney's Office release on Easton and his co-defendants said the weapons they moved reached a person who smuggled them out of the country. Eight guns Sune-Giron bought from one supplier turned up later at crime scenes in the Dominican Republic and another middleman provided guns that were found later at six other crime scenes, according to a 2024 affidavit filed by an investigator for the federal Agency for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Sune-Giron pleaded guilty to trafficking firearms, conspiracy, dealing in firearms without a license and possession of a firearm by an illegal alien. He was sentenced in March to 14 years in federal prison. Florida is a prominent source of guns shipped illegally to both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, according to a draft version of a March 2025 United Nations report on Haiti. Neither Perez Diaz nor Vazquez are licensed gun dealers, and both were sentenced to 11 years in prison for conspiring to traffic firearms. Easton, who lives in Alachua County, was sentenced April 17 to 140 months ― 11 years and eight months ― behind bars for firearms trafficking. Easton's lawyer filed notice April 24 that the sentence was being appealed but didn't give details on the argument for doing so. This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: North Florida gun dealer prison for selling 100+ guns smuggled overseas
American Military News
26-04-2025
- American Military News
Central Florida men get 11 years in prison for trafficking guns to smuggle out of US
Two Central Florida men were sentenced to 11 years in prison for trafficking guns, including AK-47 assault rifles, to smuggle out of the country, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Derick Yamir Perez Diaz, 22, of Orlando, and Ernesto Vazquez, 23, of Kissimmee, were sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiracy to traffic firearms, according to a DOJ news release. Perez Diaz purchased guns from Stephen Easton, a federally licensed firearms dealer in Melrose. Easton received 11 years, 8 months in prison after pleading guilty to firearms trafficking, the release said. Some of the weapons trafficked by Derick Yamir Perez Diaz, of Orlando, Florida, and Ernesto Vazquez, of Kissimmee, Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. (U.S. Attorney's Office/TNS) Perez Diaz purchased over 100 guns at the direction of Vazquez and others, according to court records. Using Vazquez's money he bought guns from sources including federally licensed dealers like Easton, Chinese gun manufacturers and others. The guns included AK-47 assault rifles, Glock pistols, Draco pistols and machine gun conversion devices. Easton sold guns to Perez Diaz knowing he was dealing in firearms without a license, records show. Perez Diaz would deliver them to Vazquez and others who directed him to make purchases. Vazquez would then sell them to an unidentified individual who smuggled them out of the U.S. He also received guns from others besides Perez Diaz. DOJ said more than 100 Glocks and AK-47s were trafficked between October and December 2023 alone. Court records show text messages between Perez Diaz and Vazquez arranging purchases — including one in November 2023 where Perez Diaz purchased 40 Glocks from Easton at Vazquez's direction. 'It's going to be all 40 Glocks?' Perez Diaz asked. 'All of it,' Vazquez replied. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives executed a search warrant at Vazquez's residence in April 2024 and found multiple firearms, stockpiles of ammunition and grenades, the release said. ___ © 2025 Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Yahoo
Central Florida men get 11 years in prison for trafficking guns to smuggle out of US
Two Central Florida men were sentenced to 11 years in prison for trafficking guns, including AK-47 assault rifles, to smuggle out of the country, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Derick Yamir Perez Diaz, 22, of Orlando, and Ernesto Vazquez, 23, of Kissimmee, were sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiracy to traffic firearms, according to a DOJ news release. Perez Diaz purchased guns from Stephen Easton, a federally licensed firearms dealer in Melrose. Easton received 11 years, 8 months in prison after pleading guilty to firearms trafficking, the release said. Perez Diaz purchased over 100 guns at the direction of Vazquez and others, according to court records. Using Vazquez's money he bought guns from sources including federally licensed dealers like Easton, Chinese gun manufacturers and others. The guns included AK-47 assault rifles, Glock pistols, Draco pistols and machine gun conversion devices. Easton sold guns to Perez Diaz knowing he was dealing in firearms without a license, records show. Perez Diaz would deliver them to Vazquez and others who directed him to make purchases. Vazquez would then sell them to an unidentified individual who smuggled them out of the U.S. He also received guns from others besides Perez Diaz. DOJ said more than 100 Glocks and AK-47s were trafficked between October and December 2023 alone. Court records show text messages between Perez Diaz and Vazquez arranging purchases — including one in November 2023 where Perez Diaz purchased 40 Glocks from Easton at Vazquez's direction. 'It's going to be all 40 Glocks?' Perez Diaz asked. 'All of it,' Vazquez replied. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives executed a search warrant at Vazquez's residence in April 2024 and found multiple firearms, stockpiles of ammunition and grenades, the release said.
