A man’s prior criminal convictions didn’t stop him from illegally buying guns in South Florida — and smuggling them to Canada.
Mackenzie Delmas, 27, of Delray Beach was sentenced Tuesday to over 16 years in federal prison after he had pleaded guilty last year to smuggling, straw purchasing and possession of firearms by a convicted felon, among other charges, court records show.
With a prior conviction leaving him unable to buy firearms, Delmas deployed straw buyers to gun shows throughout South Florida to buy firearms on his behalf from 2018 to 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Florida said in a statement.
The buyers would tell federally licensed firearms dealers that the guns were for them, when in fact they were for Delmas, authorities said. In a little over one year, investigators say he obtained 25 firearms using this method, including six identical .40 caliber Smith & Wesson pistols and two 9mm Taurus pistols.
In 2018, Canadian border service authorities detained one of their own citizens driving across the border from New York, finding that his vehicle had a “trap’‘ compartment hiding 20 firearms and a silencer, according to his criminal complaint. Of the twenty 20 firearms seized, investigators discovered that at least 17 had been purchased from a federally licensed firearm dealer in South Florida.
Canadian mounted police seized another gun connected to Delmas during a 2019 criminal investigation, according to authorities.
In 2014, Delmas was convicted in Palm Beach County of burglary of a dwelling while armed and wearing a face mask, and the following year he was convicted of one count of uttering a forgery and one count of fraudulent use of a credit-card, investigators found.
Delmas was one of seven defendants convicted and sentenced in the Southern District of Florida in connection to this case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Naomi Natal Haynes, 41, a citizen of Canada and U.S. legal resident, was sentenced in January to seven years in prison for conspiracy to make false statements to firearms dealers and to smuggle guns from U.S. to Canada. Last year, Marco Ian Almeida-Barreto, 24, of Pompano Beach was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of firearms as a convicted felon.
Another convicted for his alleged role in the scheme was Jeremy Rosello, 24, of Lauderdale Lakes, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2020 after he pleaded guilty to one charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Two more defendants, Shalena Mary Haynes and Enza Esposito, are fugitives, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.