Ghost guns discovered at licensed day care in East Harlem

Ghost guns were discovered at an operational East Harlem day care on Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD officials announced Wednesday afternoon.

The licensed day care was operating at an apartment on East 117th Street. Detectives executed search warrants and said they discovered a ghost gun printing operation.

The warrants resulted in the arrest of three individuals, including two minors, and the recovery of multiple 3D-printed firearms.

Karon Coley, 18, was charged with manufacturing ghost guns with a 3D printer out of his mother’s East Harlem apartment, where she operated a licensed day care.

Inside the day care facility investigators said they found a 3D printer, 3D printing tools, plastic filament, two completed printed firearms, one printed assault pistol in the final stages of assembly and one additional 3D printed lower receiver.

Coley was charged with criminal possession of a weapon loaded firearm, manufacture of machine gun, manufacture of rapid fire modified device, manufacture of a dangerous instrument, criminal possession of a weapon three or more firearms, criminal possession of a weapon assault rifle, criminal possession of a weapon ammo clip and acting in a manor injurious to a child under 17.

It is unclear if Coley’s mother is facing charges.

The day care was licensed to operate in February of 2021 and was last inspected this February. During that inspection it was cited for three violations.

The news of the bust comes nearly two weeks after four young children attending a day care in the Bronx were treated for opioid poisoning. One of the victims, 1-year-old Nicholas Dominici, is believed to have died from the exposure.

In that case, police found drugs beneath a trap door and a kilogram of fentanyl that was stored near mats that children used for sleeping, along with multiple devices used by traffickers for mixing drugs and pressing it into bricks.

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