Michael Kelly, Gun Smuggling, Nevada 2024

Las Vegas resident Michael Kelly, 30, is headed to federal prison for 21 months after admitting he served as a gun runner for a trafficking scheme that ended with firearms seized at the Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas. Kelly wasn’t the triggerman, but he played a critical role—lying on federal forms to buy weapons for someone else, then cashing out like a hired hand in a crime syndicate.

Court records show Kelly bought two guns on April 16, 2016—a Romarm/Century Arms Draco 7.62x39mm and a Glock Model 22 .40 caliber S&W—from a Las Vegas dealer. He signed ATF Form 4473, swearing under penalty of perjury that he was the actual buyer. He wasn’t. Within days, he handed both firearms over to co-defendant Naeem Smith in exchange for $1,200.00. That lie—on paper, under law—is what sealed his fate.

Just nine days later, Kelly returned to the same deadly game. On April 25, 2016, he purchased two more Glock Model 22 .40 caliber handguns from another dealer, again signing the ATF form with false statements. Once more, he handed the weapons to Smith, who paid him $1,800.00. No questions asked. No background checks triggered. Just cash and guns, moving like contraband through the legal marketplace.

The operation unraveled when Smith boarded a flight to St. Thomas on April 28, 2016. At the Cyril E. King Airport, Customs and Border Protection officers opened his checked bag and found multiple firearms—including the very guns Kelly had bought weeks earlier. The trail led straight back to Las Vegas, and to a man who thought he could profit from deception.

Kelly now faces 21 months behind bars, followed by three years of supervised release. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives led the investigation, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Delia Smith and Juan Albino handled the prosecution. Kelly’s name is now etched into the federal system—not as a victim, not as a bystander, but as a willing cog in a gun trafficking chain.

This case falls under the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods Initiative, a nationwide push targeting violent crime hotspots through coordinated federal and local enforcement. In the Virgin Islands, where illegal firearms fuel violence, cases like Kelly’s are under a microscope. Buying guns for others isn’t a favor. It’s a felony. And now, Kelly’s paying for it in full.