More than a dozen people face federal gun charges after a monthslong Chicago-area sting operation led investigators to confiscate more than 100 guns, officials said today.
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Fourteen people, 12 of them convicted felons, were charged in the investigation, which involved the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and several other agencies and included the use of three confidential informants who bought shotguns and handguns from those charged, prosecutors said in a news release today. Of those charged, nine were arrested Tuesday, and three already were in state custody, according to the release.
Among the firearms confiscated were 17 taken when investigators served warrants at a home in Gary on Tuesday, according to the release.
Among those charged were John “Batman” Thomas, 38, and Daniel “Tiny” Bingmon, 36, of Chicago, who sold five firearms to one of the informants, who they thought was a broker for someone who sold guns overseas, according to the complaint.
The investigation began in January, and in March, the informant who later posed as the broker began working with the ATF after he was confronted by agents about illegally selling guns, according to the charges against Thomas and Bingmon.
The informant bought the guns at several homes in the Chicago area, including in Country Club Hills, and in a McDonald’s parking lot in West Englewood, where he bought a 20-gauge shotgun from Bingmon after arranging the meeting through Thomas, according to court documents.
The arrests are part of a larger ATF firearms trafficking strategy called the Chicago Initiative that has led to 90 arrests and the seizure of 270 firearms this year.
Hearings in federal court for those charged in the investigation were scheduled for Thursday and Friday, according to prosecutors.