Salinas Police seize 18 ghost guns in apartment, two suspects with gang ties arrested on weapons charges

SALINAS, Calif. (KION-TV)- On Sunday morning, Salinas Police announced they arrested two suspects with gang affiliations on multiple weapons charges that include manufacturing ghost guns using multiple 3-D printers.

37-year-old Carlos Salinas of Salinas and 36-year-old Isaac Sanchez of Salinas were arrested on Saturday afternoon. Salinas Police Commander John Murray told KION that these arrests were part of an ongoing investigation.

Murray said that the department's Violence  Suppression Task Force was able to determine that Salinas was using 3-D printers to manufacture firearm parts in his apartment. Salinas would then assemble these parts produced from the 3D printing with several other firearm components to produce fully functional firearms and sell them out of his apartment.

Murray said that these firearms are commonly known as privately made firearms, “ghost guns”, and “P80’s”. VTSF authored a search warrant for his residence.

Salinas was seen leaving his apartment in a Chrysler 300 and officers conducted a traffic stop on the 100 block of Capitol Street.

Salinas was detained pursuant to the search warrant. During the traffic stop, officers located a loaded 9mm semi-auto PMF handgun inside the driver's door pocket.

VTSF was able to serve the search warrant at the apartment and detained Sanchez in the apartment.

During a search of the apartment, officers found the following items

18 semi-automatic handgun lower receivers, 18 metal handgun slides, 3 AR-rifle lower receivers, miscellaneous firearm parts, three fully functional 3D printing machines, numerous high-capacity magazines, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and $5,500.

Murray explained to KION that ghost guns do not have serial numbers and are untraceable. Once a fully assembled handgun is operational, they can sell on the street between $600 to $1,500 depending on the quality. The handguns can be converted to fire fully automatic.

Murray also explained the process of how the ghost guns were made using a 3-D printer. He said that the handgun frames come out of the 3D printer very rough and raw. He said that Salinas and Sanchez used a a Dremel tool and or a file to cut and shape it to what an actual handgun frame/receiver might look like

Salinas and Sanchez were booked into the Monterey County Jail on multiple weapons charges. A no bail enhancement was granted by the judge.

If anyone has any additional information regarding the incident, you are asked to call Salinas Police.