Man arrested for making ‘ghost guns’ in NYC apartment, including assault weapons

A Manhattan man was indicted for making several untraceable ghost guns in his apartment, authorities said Tuesday.

Jose Rivera, 47, was busted with six fully assembled guns last month inside his Lower East Side home, two of which had been fashioned into assault weapons, prosecutors said.

Rivera allegedly spent about $7,000 to buy dozens of firearm parts — as well as a fully-automated machine called the “Ghost Gunner-3” that easily manufactures illegal weapons from raw blocks of aluminum.

He had been buying the equipment over the last six years, picking up much of it in Pennsylvania to dodge New York’s stricter gun laws, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

The weapons found by the NYPD and state police in Rivera’s apartment included an AR-15 style rifle, and two of them were “easily accessible” to a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old living in the apartment, the prosecutors said.

He faces dozens of counts of weapons possession as well as endangering the welfare of a child. Rivera was also charged in connection with 200 rounds of ammunition that cops found at his home, officials said.

Ghost guns are the “fastest-growing public-safety threat” to the city, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said in a release. Seizures of homemade guns were up 38% in New York State during the first six months of this year compared to the same time period in 2022, officials have said.

“The allegations in this case once again make clear how easy it is for anyone to assemble a semi-automatic weapon in their own home,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

“Thanks to the work of our prosecutors and the hardworking detectives at the NYPD, we have prevented these firearms from hitting our streets and causing harm to New Yorkers.”