Police say suspected CEO assassin used a ghost gun - so what are they?
Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspected of gunning down a CEO in New York, used a ghost gun he may have made with a 3D printer.
Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old tech whiz suspected of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week, allegedly used a ghost gun that he might have made on a 3D printer to commit the killing, authorities said.
“He was in possession of a ghost gun that had the capability of firing a 9mm round and a suppressor,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a Monday press briefing, adding that the piece “may have been made on a 3D printer”.
What is a ghost gun?
Ghost guns are homemade firearms that are becoming increasingly popular in the underworld because they are untraceable - a digital-age upgrade from the days of filing off serial numbers.
The semiautomatic handguns are made up of plastic frames - which are undetectable by X-ray - and metal parts that can be purchased online.
Some popular models can fire off 30 rounds without needing to be reloaded.
Can you find them in Australia?
The Daily Telegraph reports hundreds of ghost guns are being sold to Sydney criminals fetching anywhere from $15,000 to $40,000 per weapon.
Some are then converted into fully automatic pistols with the attachment of a part called a “switch’’ which costs $5000 to $20,000, depending on the quality.
A single 9mm bullet costs around $100 on the black market.
At least one crime syndicate using sophisticated import methods over the past three to four years has stocked up enough parts to make hundreds of the hybrid Glock copies, underworld sources claim.
How-to tutorials can be found online explaining how to construct a ghost gun but it is illegal to make one in Australia - and even the possession of a digital blueprint is an offence in states like NSW and Tasmania.
Every law enforcement agency in the country met with the FBI in Melbourne recently to discuss the danger posed by the weapons.
A national task force, Operation Athena, is targetting the trafficking and use of illicit firearms.
“We don’t want 3D-printed weapons to become unmanageable,” NSW Police’s Drug and Firearms Squad, Detective Superintendent John Watson told the ABC recently.
“It is critical for us all to talk, for us to get a clear understanding of the landscape and to make sure that we are doing everything we can to continue to put the controls in place that we need.”
Police nabbed Mangione — who sources said is an anti-capitalist Ivy League grad who liked online quotes from “Unabomber’’ Ted Kaczynski — while he ate at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, ending an intense manhunt that began after he executed Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel last week.
Originally from Towson, Maryland, Mangione may have hated the medical community because of how it treated a sick relative, sources said.
Aside from the untraceable, homemade gun, the former prep school valedictorian was caught with a silencer, a US passport, four fake IDs with names used during the killer’s stint in New York City and a two-and-a-half page manifesto, sources said.
In the writing, he seethed that “These parasites had it coming,” law enforcement sources told The New York Post on Monday.
- with The Daily Telegraph and New York Post
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