Inmate Sentenced in Gun Trafficking Investigation

United States Drug Enforcement Administration & Aransas Pass Police Department

ARANSAS PASS, TEXAS (News Release) - A 38-year-old resident of Rock Hill, South Carolina, has been ordered by a federal judge to prison for conspiring to “straw purchase” firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. A straw purchase of firearms involves the illegal purchase of a firearm for or on behalf of others—in this case, dangerous cartel members.

Shawn Bisnauth pleaded guilty May 7.

U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos has now ordered Bisnauth to serve 300 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by five years of supervised release. At the hearing, the court heard that from 2022 through 2024, Bisnauth directed the straw purchasing operation from a South Carolina state prison using a contraband cell phone. In handing down the sentence, the court found Bisnauth responsible for placing firearms in the hands of cartel members in Mexico. The sentence imposed will run consecutively to the remainder of his state sentence.

The investigation began in early 2023 when law enforcement identified Bisnauth as a major supplier of firearms to a drug trafficking organization responsible for importing meth, cocaine, and fentanyl from Mexican cartels for distribution throughout the United States.

Bisnauth arranged for others in South Carolina to purchase at least eight firearms, including .50 caliber rifles and semiautomatic machine guns. He then directed the firearms to be transported to Texas and exchanged with the drug trafficking organization for narcotics, which individuals in South Carolina then distributed.

He has been and will remain in custody pending transfer to a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ashley Martin and Tyler Foster prosecuted the case and the Aransas Pass Police Department assisted with this case.