‘Polymer pipeline’: Authorities seize cache of illegal ghost guns in Queens apartment

In a Queens apartment building, where families live and children play, authorities seized a cache of illegal “ghost guns” and enough firearm parts to supply a small brigade.

New York City’s ongoing war with the build-at-home gun dealers escalated on Thursday when a top prosecutor showed off a haul of illegal weapons confiscated from the latest local do-it-yourself gun manufacturer.

In the fifth Queens ghost guns bust since August, cops collected a stockpile of 25 firearms, including semi-automatic pistols and assault weapons.

The at-home arsenal is as authentic as any crop of guns that rolls off an assembly line — and just as deadly. Officials say the weapons are even more menacing because they are unregulated and cannot be traced.

“This was an apartment building with people living right next door, right in the next apartment, just like you can build them right in the basement of a home,” said Queens DA Melinda Katz. “You have no idea where they are being built, and that’s what makes them all the more dangerous.”

Cops arrested Chaz McMillan, 20, and charged him with with multiple counts of criminal possession of a weapon, criminal sale of a firearm and numerous other offenses for allegedly having a stockpile of illegal weapons, including “ghost” guns, large capacity magazines and ammunition, in his Fresh Meadows home.

McMillan was arraigned Wednesday night in Queens Criminal Court on a 125-count criminal complaint. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison.

Investigators were conducting ongoing surveillance of McMillan, who has been buying firearm parts online, officials said. They executed a search warrant early Wednesday morning and recovered 25 ghost guns, including 19 semi-automatic pistols, five assault weapons and a semi-automatic shotgun.

Also recovered were 31 large capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, 670 rounds of ammunition of various calibers and several firearm-related components, parts, and equipment for assembling and manufacturing ghost guns

“When four people were shot outside a club in Upper Manhattan in September, the shooter used a ghost gun,” said Police Commissioner Dermot Shea.

“When three people were shot outside a studio in midtown Manhattan in November, a ghost gun was involved,” said Shea. “When we recently arrested a 17-year-old student at his Brooklyn high school, we recovered a ghost gun and $30,000 in his backpack. This is not a passing fad.

“These illegal weapons endanger our citizens, our police and our kids. Snapping together semiautomatic pistols and assault weapons from kits that are ordered from out of state is not some kind of hobby,” the commissioner said.

“We are seeing hundreds of ghost guns, ordered online and shipped directly to New York City. This is emerging, quickly, as a replacement supply chain for gun smugglers who traditionally relied on the ‘iron pipeline.’ "

The “iron pipeline” is law enforcement’s name for the routes by which firearms bought in states with loose gun possession laws are brought to New York.

Katz said she was particularly incensed that guns are being manufactured in the proximity of families and children.

She said the firearm parts were being delivered straight to McMillan’s apartment, which is on the first floor of a large apartment complex.

“The polymer pipeline allows traffickers to build these weapons from the comfort of their own home,” Katz said. “Ghost guns have been on the radar for the past few years, but now they are increasingly used by drivers of violent crime on the streets of Queens and on the streets of New York City.

“These individuals buy the parts, they put them together, and then they sell them or they use them in violent crimes. And they are almost impossible to trace.”