New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, right, and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announce the arrest of 19 people and seizure of 254 guns as part of gun smuggling between the Carolinas and New York, Monday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 A pair of gunrunners smuggled firearms into New York City by hiding them in luggage they carried on discount buses that offered cheap fares and lesser odds of getting caught, authorities said Monday. 
 
 An undercover city police officer posing as a gun broker for criminal customers bought 254 weapons from the men in dozens of transactions since last year _ the largest gun seizures in the city in recent memory. One of the guns was an assault rifle that was disassembled and transported in a girlfriend's zebra-striped bag, authorities said. 
 
 The alleged smugglers, Walter Walker and Earl Campbell, were among 19 people arrested in New York and in North Carolina and South Carolina _ states where the guns originated _ as the result of a 10-month investigation. Also charged was an aspiring rapper from Brooklyn. 
 
 Walker and Campbell were arrested earlier this month by local police in their home states, authorities said. The names of their defense attorneys were not immediately available. 
 
 New York Police Department officials and prosecutors announced details of the case on Monday, citing it as another example of a persistent black market in which firearms from the South can sell for three times their original price in the city. New York has some of the nation's strictest gun-control measures and a mayor who has crusaded for tougher laws in other states. 
 
 "There is no doubt that the seizure of these guns has saved lives," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference. 
 
 Wiretap evidence showed that sellers in the Carolinas knew the weapons were destined for New York, said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan. 
 
 "Perhaps the two most disturbing aspects of the gun-trafficking operation were the simplicity of the business model, and the complete indifference of the gun suppliers to the mayhem their actions would cause here in New York City," Brennan said. "The marketing strategy was buy low, sell high and keep a low profile." 
 
 The gun case was a spinoff of a drug investigation in Brooklyn that turned up Instagram photos of handguns and wads of cash posted by the rapper. Wiretap and other evidence led investigators to Walker, 29, of Sanford, N.C. and Campbell, 24, of Rock Hill, S.C., who were smuggling guns separately but using the same middleman in New York City, authorities said. 
 
 The two tapped a loose network of suppliers in their hometowns, authorities said. Some guns were obtained on the black market, while others were bought from gun dealers using straw buyers to get around one-gun-a-month restrictions. 
 
 "The problem is that the gun laws passed now, so it's like now I can only buy a gun from a gun store every 30 days," Campbell complained in one conversation, according to an indictment. "So I had to, like, pay different people to keep buying different guns." 
 
 Before heading to New York, Campbell would get photos of the guns his suppliers were offering and send the images to the undercover officer, authorities said. Both defendants would travel to the city carrying a dozen or more handguns, rifles and shotguns in bags that were stowed in luggage compartments of Chinatown-based carriers also favored by drug couriers, investigators said. 
 
 One of the discount bus companies charges $60 one-way from Raleigh, N.C., to New York. The fare is about half that charged by Greyhound, which, unlike the Chinatown buses, requires identification for boarding. 
 
 Walker met two times last year with the middleman and the undercover officer at the rapper's Brooklyn recording studio to sell the undercover firearms, the indictment said. He also alleged sold weapons to the undercover in April in Manhattan. 
 
 In January, the undercover officer met with Campbell and his girlfriend, who was carrying assault rifle parts in her zebra-striped suitcase, authorities said. The girlfriend struggled to assemble the weapon in the backseat of a car by using a YouTube instructional video she called up on her smartphone, investigators said. When she failed, the undercover bought the pieces anyway for $1,100, they said. ||||| Authorities today announced the biggest gun bust in city history — an NYPD operation that took down two smuggling rings funneling illegal guns from the South for cheap resale on New York’s streets. 
 
 Nineteen thugs were arrested and 254 firearms recovered. 
 
 Those busted included two gun runners who oversaw the pair of loosely organized rings and sold their illicit goods through the same city dealer, officials said. 
 
 One of the men, Walter Walker, used a rap studio at 1991 Atlantic Ave. in the Ocean Hill section of Brooklyn as his home base in the city. The undercover police operation had been dubbed “Up on the Hill.’’ 
 
 Another perp, Earl Campbell, was clearly worried about the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactics. 
 
 He was caught on tape asking a supplier “whether he should hold merchandise where he was [in transit] or bring it back to South Carolina,” said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. 
 
 “Campbell didn’t want to risk it being found by New York Police and is heard by police saying, ‘Yea, I’m in Charlotte now. I can’t take them to my house, to my side of town in Brownsville. We got, like, whatchama call it, stop and frisk,’ ” Kelly said. 
 
 Kelly also said that last year “detectives learned through an unrelated undercover narcotics investigation that guns were being sold in the Oceanhill community of Brooklyn.” 
 
 Above the Country Kitchen restaurant on Atlantic and Saratoga avenues, within the 81st Precinct, they discovered a 26-year-old aspiring rapper, Mathew Best, who lived on Saratoga Avenue. He also used a unit in the same building as a recording studio. 
 
 “Best posted several photos of guns and cash on Instagram, and in the video he posted on YouTube, he boasted, ‘Packing more guns than the Air Force,’ ” Kelly said. 
 
 Best helped Walker peddle the guns,” authorities said. 
 
 Walker “made trips to New York City practically every week and sometimes multiple times a week just to sell guns,” Kelly said. 
 
 “There is no doubt that the seizure of these guns – the largest bust in the city’s history – has saved lives,’’ Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement. “For that reason, every New Yorker, in every part of our city, owes a debt of thanks to all those involved in this investigation.” 
 
 Sources said the bust was due in part to the NYPD’s “pro-active’’ policies such as its controversial stop-and-frisk. 
 
 Walker of Sanford, NC, and Earl Campbell of Rock Hill, SC, would bring up their haul to New York on their favorite mode of transportation — cheap buses to Chinatown — and transfer them to Brooklyn-based broker Omole Adedji, authorities said. 
 
 The transactions between the men would be swift and extremely profitable, with the guns selling for at least three times their original price, officials said. 
 
 The thugs knew they could get a premium for the weapons given New York’s strict gun laws, authorities said. 
 
 Nearly $160,000 was made on the sale of at least some of the weapons, officials said. 
 
 Some of the sellers urged the thugs to also sell ammo, with one perp referring to the bullets as “cop killers.’’ 
 
 One suspect, a 19-year-old one, was busted with a 19mm SKS semiautomatic in her bag. 
 
 The Manhattan DA’s office and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are involved in the ongoing investigation. 
 
 The case is being handled primarily by the city’s Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.
– The NYPD has made its largest gun bust in recent memory, seizing 254 firearms in a 10-month operation. The guns were smuggled from North and South Carolina into New York City by two gunrunners, who hid the weapons in luggage on discount buses, then purchased by an undercover cop pretending to be a gun broker across a number of transactions, the AP reports. The alleged smugglers, Walter Walker, 29, and Earl Campbell, 24, and 17 others—including Matthew Best, an up-and-coming rapper from Brooklyn—have been arrested. Best's involvement is an interesting one: Authorities stumbled on the gun smuggling operation during a drug investigation, after the rapper posted Instagram photos of handguns and cash. Turns out, Best was helping Walker sell his guns, the New York Post reports. Walker and Campbell bought the guns both on the black market and through gun dealers, and would then stuff a dozen or more into bags and courier them on cheap Chinatown-based bus services, the AP reports. On one occasion, authorities say, Campbell brought along his girlfriend, who carried a deconstructed assault rifle in her zebra-striped suitcase. She then tried to reassemble the gun by looking up a YouTube instructional video on her phone, but couldn't put it back together. The undercover officer bought it for $1,100 anyway.