A Trenton, New Jersey man has been sentenced to two years and three months in prison for trafficking 40 semi-automatic firearms from North Carolina into Philadelphia and New Jersey, using Amtrak’s Philadelphia 30th Street Station, U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said in a statement.
Junious Flemming, 29, pleaded guilty in September to criminal conspiracy and transporting firearms on a common carrier.
Between October 2020 and March 2021, Flemming paid co-conspirators to buy guns in North Carolina and transport them on trains to Philadelphia. This happened at least three times.
Once in Philadelphia, Flemming trafficked many of the guns into New Jersey, the statement said.
The scheme was revealed when federal agents executed a search warrant at 30th Street Station on March 9, 2021. They found 10 semi-guns in luggage that was being moved by Flemming’s partner.
From there, agents arrested Flemming when he picked up his partner from the Amtrak station.
In addition to prison, U.S. District Judge Nitza I. Quiñones-Alejandro sentenced Flemming to three years of supervised release.
Williams said that in April 2021, she announced the All Hands On Deck initiative in an effort to stop the violence in the city and support the Philadelphia Police Department by collaborating with other agencies. Last year, a record 562 people were murdered in Philadelphia. As of Feb. 15, just 46 days into the year, 64 people have been murdered.
“Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced strategies to stem the flow of firearms used to commit violence and support local law enforcement partners, including cracking down on firearms trafficking and the ‘iron pipeline’—the illegal flow of guns sold in mostly southern states, transported up the East Coast, and found at crime scenes in cities like ours,” Williams said in the statement.
The so-called iron pipeline is a route on and near Interstate 95 considered to be popular routes for gun trafficking, although guns often travel from states with more relaxed laws to states with stricter gun laws.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Philadelphia Field Division and Assistant U. S. Attorney Michael R. Miller investigated this case.
The case was also part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a federally funded program that aims to reduce violent crime by bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve.
