Sacramento man sentenced for making ghost guns and selling the firearms on Snapchat
A 20-year-old Sacramento man on Tuesday was sentenced to three years, four months in prison for unlawfully making ghost guns and advertising the firearms for sale in Snapchat videos, federal prosecutors said.
In October, Andrew Jace Larrabure-Tuma pleaded guilty to unlawful dealing and manufacturing firearms. Juan Manriquez of Antioch, Larrabure-Tuma’s co-defendant, has pleaded guilty to unlawful dealing in firearms and is scheduled to be sentenced May 16, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento.
On Sept. 28, 2021, federal and state investigators served a search warrant at Larrabure-Tuma’s apartment. There, the investigators found what appeared to be a firearm manufacturing operation.
Federal prosecutors said Larrabure-Tuma, who could not legally purchase a gun in California, ordered online kits for privately manufactured firearms, commonly known as ghost guns. He ordered the kits from Polymer80, a licensed firearms manufacturer based in Sparks, Nevada.
Larrabure-Tuma put the guns together and then sold the guns he had manufactured, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The investigation into Larrabure-Tuma began July 28, 2021, at a Safeway grocery store parking lot in Pollock Pines, where he unknowingly met with a confidential informant working for the Western El Dorado Narcotics Enforcement Team.
At that El Dorado County parking lot, Larrabure-Tuma sold the informant a disassembled AR-15-style gun and a full-auto switch designed to convert the firearm to a fully-automatic weapon. Details of the illegal gun sale were included in an affidavit filed in federal court on Oct. 8, 2021, by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The same informant on Aug. 4, 2021, bought a fully-automatic machine gun, along with 3.5 grams of cocaine from Larrabure-Tuma at the same Safeway parking lot, according to the affidavit. Five days later, a detective from the narcotics team found two videos Larrabure-Tuma had recently posted on his Snapchat account that showed him firing a Glock-style handgun several times out the side of the driver’s side window of his blue Ford Mustang near Bonetti Road in El Dorado County.
On Aug. 12, 2021, Tuma told the informant he had “a gun connection” in Antioch — who was later identified as Manriquez — who sells rifles, pistols and machine guns, according to the filed affidavit.
Federal investigators said Manriquez later that month sold nine guns to an undercover ATF agent, including a Glock 30S .45 caliber pistol that had been converted to a machine gun and a Glock-style ghost gun.
Several weeks after the investigation into Larrabure-Tuma began, investigators arrived at his apartment with the search warrant and a warrant for his arrest. The investigators found at his home partially completed firearms, firearm kits made by Polymer80, firearm parts, tools for manufacturing and finishing firearms, firearm accessories, completed firearms, and ammunition.
