Two brothers were indicted on 130 criminal charges in New York City on Tuesday in connection with a vast collection of 3D-printed guns, improvised explosives, anarchist propaganda and a "hit list" referring to "celebrities" and other authority figures.
Andrew Hatziagelis, 39, and Angelo Hatziagelis, 51, from Astoria in Queens, were remanded in custody after police said they harbored "evil intent."
Among the weapons were eight "fully operable" bombs, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.
“We cannot measure the number of lives that were saved, but we do know that these weapons will never hurt anyone," Katz said in a statement.
Katz’s office released an image of a handwritten “Hit List” recovered by police that mentions “cops, judges, politicians, celebrities” and “banker scum.” There were no names, but the list was enough to alarm authorities.
"We did recover multiple writings, multiple notebooks, showing that they were just very anti-government, anti-society. There were writings quoting Charles Manson, very into human destruction," Courtney Nilan of the New York police intelligence division told NBC New York.
Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban said in a statement, “Today’s charges underscore the harsh reality that our communities contain a small number of people who conceivably harbor evil intent."
"This cache of weapons — including explosives and untraceable, 3D-printed ghost guns — had the potential to wreak horrendous carnage," he added.
So-called ghost guns can be printed at home using designs found online. The Biden administration has sought to clamp down on the practice, but a federal appeals court rejected a new regulation to restrict their use in November.
It was the purchase of components for those weapons that alerted the Queens DA's Crime Strategies & Intelligence Bureau to the pair's alleged activity, leading to a six-month investigation, authorities said.
Police said they obtained a warrant on Jan. 17 and searched their address, finding a vast array of weapons, including: two loaded AR-15-style ghost guns, each with detachable magazines; a partly constructed bomb tripwire; four loaded 9 mm semiautomatic ghost gun pistols, two of them 3D-printed; an AK-47-style ghost gun assault rifle; and more than 600 rounds of ammunition.
Such was officers' concern about the explosives that they evacuated the entire building on 36th Avenue, which is opposite a power plant.
Police said the two men lived with their mother and another brother, neither of whom face charges, NBC New York reported.
Police said they also found a 3D printer and other tools to assemble the ghost guns, three sets of body armor and various notebooks on how to make explosives, as well as anarchist propaganda.
An image released by police shows crude explosives apparently made from used soda cans and other household items.
Among the charges against the brothers are 64 separate counts relating to illegal weapons possession. The pair will appear in court on Feb. 15, and, if convicted, each face up to 25 years in jail.
A court docket shows that Angelo Hatziagelis, who was born in 1972, has pleaded not guilty.
The Legal Aid Society in New York, which is representing at least one of the Hatziagelis brothers, declined to comment.
Some compared the case to that of the Tsarnaev brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan, who were convicted of planting and detonating two pressure cooker bombs at separate spots near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013.
