CONCORD, N.H. (WGGB/WSHM) - A Franklin County man is among 13 people charged in an international gun smuggling operation.

On Thursday May 14th, federal authorities announced indictments from the trafficking network centered around Dummerston, Vermont, near Brattleboro and Keene, New Hampshire.

Investigators said 51 firearms were purchased in those areas and smuggled into Canada. As we heard from the U.S. Attorney, it unraveled with a single shell casing. Several of the weapons were recovered at crime scenes involving kidnapping and attempted murder.

Suspects recruited people with clean records to buy them from gun shops, not far from the Pioneer Valley, before moving them through the Akwesasne Reservation — which overlaps the northern New York border into Canada.

Due to it being a sovereign territory in control of its own ports of entry, the reservation has a history of international smuggling. Eight residents of the Akwesasne Mohawk Indian Reservation were charged.

Five others already pleaded guilty — including 80-year-old Doug Mulligan of New Salem, Mass.

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