4 Arrested in Sale of 2,000 Guns Stolen at Factory

Four Riverside County men have been arrested in connection with the theft and sale of as many as 2,000 factory-fresh handguns, authorities said Monday.

Law enforcement officials believe the guns were stolen from Lorcin Engineering, a Mira Loma gun manufacturer, by two of its employees and then sold wholesale on the street, said John D’Angelo, a special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Most of the guns were brand-new .25-caliber pistols, popular because they are easily concealable in the palm of a hand, D’Angelo said. Other handguns believed stolen from Lorcin Engineering were 9-millimeter pistols and .380-caliber pistols, he said.

The Lorcin .380-caliber pistol has been the gun most frequently traced by the ATF in connection with crimes so far this year, and the Lorcin .25-caliber pistol is the fourth most frequently traced gun, D’Angelo said.

Undercover ATF agents purchased two separate lots of 36 new guns each--still in their factory packaging--which led to the arrest of the four suspects last Thursday, D’Angelo said.

Two Lorcin employees, identified by D’Angelo as Jeremy Mendoza, 20, and Ernesto Zamora, 22, both of the Riverside-area community of Rubidoux, were arrested on suspicion of stealing firearms from a licensed manufacturer. Arrested on suspicion of dealing firearms without a license were two Moreno Valley men, Anthony Clendenen and Andre Mitchell, both 22.

Mendoza and Zamora are the first in California to be charged under the new 1994 federal crime bill that prohibits the theft of firearms from a licensed dealer, authorities said. Each faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

Previously, federal authorities prosecuted violations of gun laws only if the weapons were taken across a state line.

The four arrests followed a two-month undercover operation prompted six months ago by a Riverside City Police Department gang investigation, D’Angelo said.

The .25-caliber pistols, which normally sell for about $70, were purchased for about $40 apiece in the undercover operation, D’Angelo said.

He said ATF investigators are auditing Lorcin Engineering to determine how many weapons may have been stolen. In 1992, he said, the Riverside County company manufactured about 106,000 .25-caliber pistols and about 79,000 9-mm pistols.