NEW YORK — A 23-year-old student sold 73 guns to an undercover officer after transporting weapons from his Tennessee college town, officials said Wednesday.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark and New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said Shakor Rodriguez, a Bronx native, brought the weapons and high-capacity magazines into the Bronx and Manhattan, where they were then sold. Rodriguez allegedly transported the weapons by bus from Clarksville, Tennessee, where he was attending college.
“Dozens of the firearms were loaded and four are considered assault weapons,” Clark said. “Bronxites are dying from gunfire and we cannot tolerate one more illegal gun in our community.”
Rodriguez is charged with a total of 304 counts, including criminal sale of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon. The arrest is part of a crackdown on the “Iron Pipeline,” which transports guns into New York. Recently, a firearm obtained through the illegal network was used to kill two NYPD officers in Manhattan.
“Stopping traffickers who flood our streets with illegal guns is mission critical in our work to smash the Iron Pipeline. The NYPD’s officers, working with their prosecutorial partners in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, are the first line of defense in protecting our residents, our families, and our children from the scourge of gun violence and I commend their work in this important case,” Sewell said.
According to the investigation by the NYPD Firearms Investigations Unit and the Bronx District Attorney’s Violent Criminal Enterprise Bureau, Rodriguez sold the 73 weapons to the undercover officer between July 2020 and December 2021; 59 of those guns were loaded, and Rodriguez also sold 40 high-capacity magazines, including multiple “drum” magazines. The officer paid typically between $1,000 and $1,500 per gun.
The investigation is continuing into how he obtained the guns and where they were purchased.
