A federal grand jury in Texas indicted a Dallas man June 7 on charges he bought and then resold 92 guns purchased from federally licensed dealers, which were then used in multiple crimes in the United States and Canada.
According to a Department of Justice press release Monday, Dallas resident Demontre Antwon Hackworth, 31, bought 75 of the guns in the past six months from the now-closed, federally licensed Triggernometry Arms, LLC, in Waxahachie, Texas, between 2019 and 2021.
The indictment alleges Hackworth sold the guns to others without performing required federal background checks, and 16 of the weapons, mostly handguns, were recovered by law enforcement responding to incidents in Texas, Maryland, and Canada, including aggravated assault, drug trafficking, and homicide.
Three of the guns were used in multiple crimes, according to the DOJ.
“As part of the department-wide, anti-violent crime strategy we launched last year, we are marshalling the resources of every one of our U.S. Attorneys’ offices, law enforcement agencies, grant-making entities, and other components to work in partnership with state and local law enforcement to disrupt violent crime,” Attorney General Merrick B Garland said in the release Monday. “We are cracking down on the criminal gun-trafficking pipelines that flood our communities with illegal guns, and we have instructed our federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents to prioritize prosecutions of those who are responsible for the greatest gun violence. The case we are announcing today is just one example of those efforts.”
According to the DOJ, Hackworth claimed to be the buyer of the guns at the time he bought them, but later sold them to other individuals, violating federal law.
Hackworth was arrested last Friday in Dallas and faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted of the charges, the DOJ said in the release.
“Illegal firearms trafficking is not a victimless crime,” Special Agent in Charge Jeff Boshek of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) Dallas Field Division said in the release. “There are real consequences when individuals illegally engage in the business of buying and selling firearms. ATF will continue to use all available resources to strategically target and identify illegal firearms sales, trafficking patterns, and sources of crime guns; and to interrupt the illegal flow of firearms to criminal gang members, felons, firearm traffickers, and all persons who are otherwise prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law.”
The ATF’s Dallas Field Division, in partnership with the agency’s Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) program, conducted the investigation, the release said.
Via Newsmax
