A federal grand jury indicted three men in Puerto Rico for having trafficked almost 1,000 firearms, reported the chief of the federal prosecutor’s office in Puerto Rico, Stephen Muldrow.
In a press release, Muldrow identified the defendants as Radames Revilla Machin, Roberto Miranda Schmidt and Luis Matos Rosa.
According to the indictment, since 2012 Revilla Machín and Miranda Schmidt transferred over 820 firearms to Puerto Rico.
Meanwhile, the charges allege that since 2019 Matos Rosa has transferred over 100 weapons to the island.
“Several of these transfers occurred within 72 hours following the defendants acquired the weapons,” the federal prosecutor’s statement said.
He added that the three defendants advertised the sale of weapons on websites.
Muldrow noted that none of the defendants had a license to sell firearms.
Even in 2019, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF, for its acronym in English, sent Revilla-Machín a letter advising him to stop getting involved in the business of selling weapons without having the required licenses.
“Working with our local partners to address violent crime is one of the Department of Justice’s top priorities,” said US Attorney Muldrow.
“Today’s arrests are yet another example of our commitment to fighting violent crime and illegal firearms trafficking. We will continue to investigate and disrupt networks that plant weapons in our communities, often with tragic consequences,” he added.
For his part, the director of the ATF in the Miami regional office, Christopher A. Robinson, stressed that “today’s arrests represent significant steps in the ATF and the Police Bureau to combat arms trafficking in Puerto Rico.”