Chance highway stop leads to South Bay gun-running probe, charges

SAN JOSE — After a traffic stop of two men near a famed roadside attraction uncovered an array of brand-new handguns hidden in socks, an ensuing police investigation led to charges that they had been illegally selling guns they bought out of state, authorities said.

That fateful speeding stop at Casa de Fruta on Highway 152 also spurred allegations that the weapons — ranging from handguns to assault rifles — were sold at exorbitant markups because their customer base consisted of people who either did not want to register their firearms or who were prohibited from having guns because of felony convictions.

Last week, the two men were charged with more than a half-dozen felonies accusing them of conspiring to circumvent laws requiring out-of-state guns to pass through a licensed dealer before they can be legally possessed and sold in California.

Isrrael Negrete-Avina, 49, of Lathrop, and Alvaro Miranda, 30, of San Jose, were arrested and arraigned last week in San Jose, records show. Miranda, who is Negrete-Avina’s nephew, is being held without bail in the Elmwood men’s jail in Milpitas. Negrete-Avina is out of custody after posting $60,000 bail and agreeing to supervised release that includes GPS monitoring.

“These persons going out and selling and trafficking firearms, they’re not just doing it in noncompliance with California law. They are selling to persons who have not gone through the process to safely and legally purchase a firearm,” said Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Mike Vidmar, who is prosecuting the charges. “Persons looking to purchase firearms in this manner are prohibited because they’re felons, have a history of violence, or are under a restraining order, and can’t do it lawfully.”

“These are the markets we are trying to address,” Vidmar added, referring to the work of his office’s Gun Violence Task Force, which investigated the case.

The two men first attracted the attention of law enforcement the afternoon of April 15 after California Highway Patrol officers stopped their Nissan Altima for speeding on Pacheco Pass. The driver, identified in a police report as Negrete-Avina, eventually pulled over near the popular Casa de Fruta roadside market and rest stop.

Owing to the smell of marijuana inside the car, the officers asked the men to exit, and Negrete-Avina reportedly consented to a search of the vehicle, according to a CHP report. Officers found six new handguns, each one concealed inside a sock, in the car’s trunk panels.

Both men reportedly told officers that they bought the weapons at a gun show near Oklahoma City and that the firearms were for their personal use. The CHP forwarded the findings to the district attorney’s office for further investigation.

The resulting police report shows that DA investigators obtained the two men’s cell phone ping data to track their movements to and from an April 14 gun show at state fairgrounds outside Oklahoma City. The tracking data also showed movements indicating that in late January, they traveled to Oklahoma to attend a gun show in Tulsa.

The men’s text messages and social media posts were also obtained and examined, and show evidence of selling weapons they bought at the gun shows, according to the DA investigative report. That includes a Snapchat post by Miranda in February showing a Kel-Tec SUB-2000 carbine rifle accompanied by a message stating, “Big boy toys available.”

Investigators also cited multiple text messages spanning 2022 and 2023 in which Negrete-Avina and Miranda discuss obtaining guns and how much they should sell them for. In some texts, they discuss their markups, with some messages mentioning getting up to $7,000 in profit from the sale of three guns, and buying a custom-made handgun out of state for $3,500 and selling it in California for $6,000.

The DA report cites phone number lookups to link at least two of the reputed gun sales to people prohibited from having guns because of prior felony convictions. But to this point, the men have not been directly charged with doing so.

Vidmar said the case, and the chance discovery of the first set of guns, reflects how commonly state gun laws are being bypassed.

“This is the type of firearm crime that has gone under-investigated. These are not new laws,” he said. “It suggests this is happening more frequently and much more regularly than we realize.”