One Man War Zone

A tip to a detective from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office has led to the arrest of a convicted arsonist and suspected gun dealer, and confiscation of a huge arsenal of weapons, ammunition, military gear and sensitive police radio equipment in Queens.
Suwei Chuang, 36, of 135-11 40th Road in Flushing, was stopped by police near the corner of Gold and Spruce Streets in downtown Manhattan and arrested at about 8:45 p.m. on Wednesday, January 2, after cops spotted a “locked and loaded assault weapon” in plain view on the back seat of his car.
A woman known to Chuang had called the detective, saying the Flushing man had “menaced” her with a firearm from inside his vehicle. Acting on the description provided, cops arrested Chuang for weapons possession, just a few blocks from Police headquarters and City Hall.
Upon observing the gun in the car, police obtained two search warrants, one for the car and one for Chuang’s apartment.
In the car, they found a “bullet-proof vest” and “close to 800 rounds” of ammunition for the AR-15 (a “civilian version” of the M-16 rifle used by the U.S. military) much of it in 30-round magazines. The gun was fitted with a scope.
Armed with the other warrant, at about 11 p.m. cops from the Firearms Investigation Unit and the 109th Precinct entered Chuang’s 7th floor apartment, just across the street from the Main Street Flushing Long Island Rail Road station.
What they found was “disturbing to say the least,” according to a police source.
In the apartment was an arsenal which included about a dozen handguns, one of which, a police-type Glock, was reported stolen, numerous other firearms, 40 large knives and close to 30,000 rounds of ammunition, including armor-piercing and hollow-point bullets.
Worse yet, Chuang was in possession of at least 6 police radios, including an “encoder” which would enable him to monitor the “back frequencies” used by undercover and anti-terror cops.
This revelation has drawn the attention of the Internal Affairs Division of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) which is trying to discover how such sensitive communications equipment fell into the hands of the Taiwan-born Chuang, who was convicted of arson in federal court in 1996.
Chuang, a naturalized citizen and U.S. Army vet, had been examined by an NYPD psychologist before the arson. It was unclear why he was screened, but the psychologist found that Chuang had “poor stress tolerance, poor judgment, poor impulse control and immaturity,” a police source said.
The amount of ammunition, body armor, gas masks and other electronics have also drawn the attention of the NYPSD Organized Crime Investigation Division, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
One of the guns was a Belgian-made PS90, a “civilian version” of a state-of-the-art machine gun used by Special Forces around the world. The weapon, erroneously reported to be an “automatic machine gun,” fires a bullet which easily penetrates Kevlar helmets and body armor used by most law enforcement agencies.
The high-tech rifle was also fitted with a special scope which would enable a gunman to hit targets in near total darkness.
Also found was a .50 caliber muzzle-loading rifle of a similar design to the gun seized by police on the St. John’s University campus not long ago.
According to a police spokesperson, “Investigation revealed that Chuang was known to stockpile weapons,” and “Inspector Brian O’Neill said Chuang was being probed as a weapons dealer,” according to a published report.
Cops are also disturbed that in addition to the PS90, an easily concealed gun which has only been available for a few months, there were four empty boxes, two for the PS90 and two for the FS2000, a nearly identical weapon which fires NATO-standard ammunition. Those guns have been on the market since June of 2006.
A source close to the investigation told The Queens Courier, “We think someone may have gotten to the apartment just ahead of us.”
While many of the weapons appeared to be used, the PS90 and FS2000 are relatively new designs which sell for close to $2,000 each on the legitimate market.
“There’s no telling what they go for on the street,” a source said, adding “that’s a very ‘sexy’ weapon.”
The PS90 comes with a 50-round clip, and the military version fires at a rate of 900 rounds per minute. Demonstration videos supplied by the manufacturer show the bullets easily going through titanium and Kevlar body armor.
“Numerous rounds” of ammunition for the weapon were found in the apartment.
The source said Chuang “lawyered up immediately” and that a woman claiming to be his sister and to own the 10-story building where Chuang lived “came down (to the 109th command) bragging about how much money they had and wanting to bail him out.”
After the weapons were cataloged and the Glock pistol was discovered to have been stolen from an upstate residence, Chuang was remanded to jail on Riker’s Island on a charge of robbery, in addition to weapons possession, according to Department of Correction records.