Alaska man who supplied weapons to Sacramento gangs sentenced to federal prison
A convicted Alaska gun trafficker who supplied Sacramento gangs with more than two-dozen weapons tied to attempted murders, robberies and payback shootings in and around California’s capital was sentenced this week in Anchorage federal court.
Authorities in Alaska said Cornelius Smith, 34, ran a complex enterprise of “straw sales” in 2021 and 2022, legally buying weapons from private parties and federally licensed dealers in the Last Frontier, then traveling to Sacramento to sell to customers in the city’s street gangs.
Smith was sentenced Tuesday to 2½ years in prison and will be required to serve three years on supervised release and 120 hours of community service. He was convicted in November on charges brought in a February 2024 federal indictment. Alaskan jurors found Smith guilty of 11 of 12 counts of firearms trafficking after a five-day trial, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska.
“Smith deliberately purchased firearms in Alaska for the sole purpose of illegally trafficking them to prohibited individuals in California, and those firearms directly contributed to gun and gang violence in and around the Sacramento area,” U.S. Attorney Michael J. Heyman for the District of Alaska said in a statement announcing the sentencing.
“Let this conviction and sentence highlight that the straw purchase of firearms in Alaska — especially for the purpose of supplying the firearms to violent criminals — will be prosecuted,” Heyman said.
Authorities said Smith bought 28 firearms from Alaskan dealers between February 2021 and April 2022, affirming each time that he was not purchasing the weapons for someone else. Federal law requires those who purchase weapons from federally licensed dealers to complete paperwork affirming they are sole buyers, not go-betweens, for a third party.
In 2021 alone, Smith bought 17 weapons from federally licensed dealers, said Alaska federal prosecutors in the statement.
Smith first traveled to Sacramento in 2021, declaring his newly purchased guns as “shooting equipment,” the prosecutors said.
The weapons quickly made their way to the streets with violent results. Half of the weapons Smith sold were later recovered by Sacramento-area law enforcement and connected to investigations of attempted homicides, robberies and gang-affiliated shootings.
The weapons local authorities recovered were modified with high-capacity magazines and automatic firing capabilities to boost their firepower, prosecutors said.
Authorities have yet to recover the remaining 14 weapons, said Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ Jonathan Blais, special agent in charge of the bureau’s Seattle field office.
“Smith’s reckless actions may be felt for years to come as many of the firearms he trafficked have yet to be recovered,” Blais is quoted as saying. “His callous disregard for laws and lack of moral conduct earned him this sentence.”
Investigators in Alaska found empty gun boxes in Smith’s home along with the serial numbers that matched the weapons he paid for in 2021, but found no weapons.
Federal prosecutors said Smith received approximately $9,000 from family members and associates in Sacramento — amounts that corresponded to what Smith paid for the firearms in Alaska.
Sacramento, Citrus Heights and Folsom police, the California Highway Patrol and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s investigators joined Bay Area law enforcement and federal investigators in Alaska and Washington state in the operation that led to Smith’s arrest.
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