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A Pennsylvania couple were busted after investigators found six fully assembled ghost guns, Nazi paraphernalia and nearly $1 million in methamphetamine in their apartment, authorities said.
The collection was allegedly found Wednesday in the Northampton residence of Christopher Weikert and Tara Gallucci as narcotics agents from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and state police executed a search warrant.
In addition to the assembled ghost guns, investigators found three kits to build the firearms — which allow people to bypass background checks and don’t have serial numbers — various ghost gun parts, four assault rifles, three handguns, and “Nazi paraphernalia,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said.
The search warrant also led to the recovery of 21.5 pounds of crystal meth, which has a street value of $968,200, and 1,275 doses of fentanyl worth about $4,275, according to Shapiro’s office.
Gallucci, 34, was arrested during the raid when investigators spotted her and Weikert driving past their apartment, according to a probable cause affidavit.
But Weikert, also 34, ran away from Northampton cops and remained at large as of early Monday, a spokesperson for Shapiro’s office told The Post.
The pair, who are convicted felons, are facing 14 counts of possession of prohibited firearms and various drug charges, including possession with intent to deliver, Shapiro said.
“People have the right to feel safe in their homes and in the neighborhoods where they live and work — and gun and drug traffickers erode that basic right,” Shapiro said in a statement. “These traffickers were also carrying ghost guns, which are quickly becoming the weapon of choice for criminals and fueling the gun violence epidemic.”
President Biden told Congress Wednesday that banning so-called ghost guns was one of several measures he’s taking to end the “epidemic” of gun violence nationwide.
“The buyers of ghost gun kits aren’t required to pass a background check,” Biden said last week. “Anyone from a criminal to a terrorist could buy this kit, and in as little as 30 minutes, put together a lethal weapon. But not anymore.”
Biden instructed the Justice Department on April 8 to issue a proposed regulation within 30 days to curb the proliferation of ghost guns, saying he wanted the build-it-yourself kits to be treated as firearms.
Roughly 10,000 of the weapons were recovered by authorities in 2019, according to ATF statistics cited in March by the Wall Street Journal, amid reports that gun manufacturers were meeting with federal firearm regulators to discuss possibly subjecting ghost guns to the same regulations as other weapons.
One kit to build an AR-15 costs as little as $345, the New York Times reported last month, citing a report by Everytown for Gun Safety.
The market for the DIY weapons, which have been sold since the 1990s, took off around 2009 when firearms sellers in California started hawking unfinished kits for AR-15s and AK-47s in a move to bypass the state’s assault weapons laws, the Times reported.
A ghost gun was later reportedly linked to a 2013 shooting at Santa Monica College in California that left six people dead, including the gunman.
Sales of the untraceable weapons rose dramatically around 2016, the Times reported.
With Post wires
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