NEW YORK – A New York Police Department officer, a federal customs agent in Los Angeles and their younger brother were accused Friday of conspiring to sell high-powered guns to potential buyers in the Philippines.
Evidence against the three brothers includes photos they e-mailed to one another that showed them posing with assault weapons, authorities said.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn alleged that Officer Rex-Gene Maralit and his brother Wilfredo relied on their brother Arial to locate customers in the Philippines and e-mail them gun orders.
The older brothers "then scoured the Internet for gun dealers and parts suppliers, and used their law enforcement credentials to obtain weapons," prosecutors said in court papers.
The men shipped the guns and gun parts overseas in packages with phony content labels, including one reading, "industrial sliding door track," the papers said.
Rex-Gene Maralit, 44, was assigned to NYPD headquarters in Manhattan. Wilfredo Maralit, 48, is a Customs and Borders Protection officer at the Los Angeles International Airport.
The two were arrested on Thursday and were to appear in court later Friday. The names of their attorneys were not immediately available. Arial Maralit, 43, was believed to be at large in the Philippines.