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TRIGGER HAPPY: Commissioner Ray Kelly yesterday displays weapons collected from gun-running rings that allegedly included Mickey Collins (top right) and Dario Wynerman. (
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Time to retire — to jail!
An ex-con who’ll be old enough to collect Social Security next month was among 13 suspects busted for running two East Harlem gun-smuggling rings that sold mainly to teenage buyers, authorities said yesterday.
Infamous gun runner Mitchell “Mickey’’ Collins, 64, was the main target of a sting operation dubbed “Mickey Mouse Trap,’’ said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
“Getting close to the wily Mickey Collins was no easy matter,” Kelly said at a press conference, noting how “unusual” it was to see someone as old as he is “still engaged in criminal activity.”
Collins has a record dating to 1968 that includes attempted murder and weapons possession, Kelly said. The elderly creep has already served at least six stints behind bars.
Authorities said Collins’ group of thugs and the other ring — four crews that called themselves the East River Army, Six-Net, Who-a-day and the Total Money Gang — sold at least 129 illegal firearms and more than 1,000 rounds of ammo.
More than 100 illegal guns tied to both networks also were confiscated during search warrants.
“There’s an awful lot of firepower here that can kill a lot of people,” said Mayor Bloomberg, joining Kelly and Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. at One Police Plaza, where the guns were displayed for reporters.
While Collins was by far the oldest of the suspects, his criminal mind was still sharp, officials said.
“He waited for months before agreeing to meet with the undercover officer, and even longer before he would agree to sell him more than one gun at a time,” Kelly said.
Collins and three cohorts eventually peddled 88 guns to the undercover, including an AK-47 that fetched $1,600 and a .32-caliber Smith and Wesson that went for $400, Kelly said.
One accomplice, Sampson Taylor, 34, would allegedly take a bus to South Carolina, stock up on firepower from pawn shops and gun dealers, and transport the illicit arsenal back to the city, where the weapons sold for a 100 percent profit.
A total of 10 came from South Carolina, and one was purchased in Virginia, prosecutors said.
The undercover “Mickey Mouse Trap” began in May 2011, Kelly said. “Operation Carver,” which netted the other gangs, started in November 2011. The members caught in that ring ranged in age from 17 to 23.
Those crews — which authorities said included alleged ringleader Dario Wynerman and Terrell Dews, both 21 — sold 41 guns and a bulletproof vest to an undercover officer in and around the Carver Houses.
Two of the weapons sold were used in prior shootings — one in The Bronx in 2003, and another in a gunfight last year in the Cypress Houses in Brooklyn, authorities said.
Ringleader Dario Wynerman, 21, singlehandedly sold the undercover cop 34 weapons himself, prosecutors allege.
Co-defendant Terrell Dews, 21, closed the deal on at least five firearms, records show.
“Every child, on every block in every neighborhood in this city has the right to walk to school without the fear of being shot,” said Vance, praising the NYPD’s Firearms Investigations Unit and his office’s Violent Crimes Enterprises Unit for carrying out the dangerous investigation.
The suspects — except for Collins, who was taken to an undisclosed hospital for an unknown injury — were arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on a variety of gun charges, and were either remanded or held on high bail.
Three suspects remain at large.
Additional reporting by Kevin Fasick