Macomb man to serve four years for gun-buying scheme

Nine others also charged by feds

A Sterling Heights man was ordered to serve over four years in federal prison for his role in an illicit operation to buy and sell over 50 firearms.

Mike Chahoua, 26, was sentenced to 52 months behind bars last week by U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith after pleading guilty in June to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft charges for acts ending in 2021, according to court documents.

He received 28 months for the conspiracy charge and a mandatory consecutive term of two years for the identity-theft charge, records say.

The conspiracy charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Nine other charges against Chahoua were dismissed as part of the plea deal, records say.

Chahoua and nine other people, eight of them from Detroit and one from Florida, were accused of an elaborate scheme to illegally buy firearms online. Chahoua and two co-defendants led the scheme from November 2020 to February 2021 in which they purchased stolen credit card information and enlisted seven “straw buyers,” also co-defendants, to use the stolen information to buy firearms from three online dealers, according to court documents.

The straw buyers would go to the licensed dealers to pick up the firearms, completing a federal form indicating they were the buyers when in fact they were not, according to authorities. The straw buyers kept some of the firearms as payment and other weapons were provided to the three leaders who kept the weapons or resold them.

At least 55 weapons were obtained, officials said.

Records indicate Chahoua was immediately remanded to prison after being free since on an unsecured $10,000 bond. Federal records indicated Tuesday he was at Milan Corrections Institution in Milan, Mich.

Chahoua was working for Fiat Chrysler at the time of his arrest, documents say.

In a prior incident, Chahoua and a co-defendant were pulled over by Warren police related to this case and police found him in possession of $4,300 in cash and six credit cards in other people’s names. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to probation, according to the judge.

In another instance, Detroit police officers stopped Chahoua in his vehicle and recovered three guns, including one he had purchased as part of the illegal scheme, documents say.