NAUGATUCK — Local police worked with federal gun agents to arrest a member of the Latin Kings street gang on Tuesday who they say illegally sold a sawed-off shotgun and offered to sell a bullet proof vest during an undercover investigation.
Amador Vega, 25, whose last known address was 6 Gayridge Road, unit 214, in Waterbury, was charged with gun trafficking after the joint investigation revealed he sold the altered weapon for $400.
Police and agents from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms used conversations recorded last year and witnesses to make the case against Vega.
Authorities learned that Vega was offering the weapon, a 12-gauge shotgun with a barrel that had been reduced to about a foot in length, for sale in May 2012. Federal agents recorded multiple conversations with an unidentified man who wanted to buy the weapon, according to court documents.
During a phone call, Vega directed the buyer to the back porch of a home on West Liberty Street in Waterbury where the shotgun was being stored, according to authorities.
Vega met up with the man a short time later at a home on Hunthill Road in Waterbury where he collected the cash, then offered up a bullet proof vest for $250, according to Vega’s arrest warrant.
Vega is the second suspected Latin King that Naugatuck police and ATF agents have arrested in connection to illegal gun sales. A .38-caliber revolver was seized during a similar investigation earlier this year when a suspected gang member arranged to sell the weapon for $400.
The gun in that case was believed to have been hidden in a Waterbury apartment complex.
Vega has had run-ins with the law in the past.
While he was still a teenager in 2005, he was charged with arson after he admitted to Waterbury police that he doused his cousin’s apartment door with gas, then set it on fire after a drug-related dispute. The flames were put out and Vega was later convicted of second-degree arson, a felony.
Vega was held on a $100,000 bond following his arrest on Tuesday and is due in Waterbury Superior Court next month.
