Brooklyn woman charged with weapons trafficking
Ajay Suresh/Wikimedia Commons
A Brooklyn woman was charged in federal court with a five-count indictment of conspiring to illegally traffic 18 guns, and other illegal materials such as drugs, into the borough.
Ariana Charles was indicted Wednesday and formally charged under the gun trafficking provisions of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, enacted in 2022 by both Congress and President Joe Biden — the first legislation of its kind to directly tackle gun trafficking in the US.
Charles was also slapped with three narcotics-related charges including the distribution of cocaine base — also known as crack cocaine — and the synthetic opioid, fentanyl. About 150 people die each day from overdoses related to fentanyl in the US.
Authorities say Charles engaged in this criminal activity from March to August of 2022. She was arrested Wednesday morning and appeared in the US District Court of the Eastern District of New York that same afternoon.
“As alleged, the defendant brazenly trafficked firearms and deadly drugs to the streets of Brooklyn, feeding the cycle of gun violence and drug abuse endangering our community,” said Breon Peace, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in a statement on Jan. 10. “This Office will not relent in its efforts to keep the community safe by investigating and prosecuting those who seek to profit from the proliferation of guns and fentanyl which have destroyed so many lives.”
According to the court documents, Charles allegedly conducted a personal firearms sale to an undercover law enforcement member in and around the New York City Housing Authority’s Breukelen Houses in Canarsie.
Additional illegal transactions occurred outside apartment buildings and shopping centers, allegedly in broad daylight. Numerous firearms were allegedly purchased in both Georgia and Virginia before their subsequent transport to New York.
The…
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