A Bloods gang member operated a “pipeline” of guns to the city, hauling weapons from North Carolina and selling them on the streets of Brooklyn until he got busted in a yearlong undercover investigation, officials announced yesterday.
Kyle Leonard, 25, was indicted on a raft of weapons charges after peddling 22 guns — including two TEC-9s and a Bushmaster AR 15 assault rifle — for $17,650, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said.
“You can start your own army with this,” Hynes said, hefting the Bushmaster. “The troubling thing to me is I don’t know how many of these [gun traffickers] are out there.”
The undercover officer made five buys in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan, meeting Leonard on the streets, where he would allegedly peddle the guns out of the trunk of his car.
Leonard, a Brooklyn native who relocated to North Carolina, allegedly took orders via text messages on his cellphone, and when he thought he had enough business to make the trip worthwhile, he would drive up to New York with his deadly cargo.
“Half of them were stolen and half were, we believe, purchased at gun shows in North Carolina,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. “The 22 semiautomatic handguns in the streets of the city is indication the iron pipeline continues to pump.”
One of the confiscated pistols was engraved, “North Carolina Highway Patrol.”
Leonard was arraigned yesterday and ordered held until a bail hearing today.
