Two teenage girls were arrested in Dorchester early Tuesday after a routine traffic stop near Blue Hill Avenue turned into a weapons and drug bust, police said. Officers said they pulled four people from the car before making the arrests and an 18-year-old woman was ordered held pending a dangerousness hearing, according to court records.
What police say
According to The Boston Globe, officers stopped the car near 653 Blue Hill Ave at about 12:42 a.m. because it did not have an inspection sticker. Police said they recovered a Smith & Wesson SD40VE loaded with 11 rounds from 18-year-old Jacqueline Botelho’s undergarments. Behind the driver’s seat, officers said they found a fanny pack that held an unregistered “ghost gun” loaded with 18 rounds, along with a plastic bag of what they believed was crack cocaine. At the station, officers reported finding two additional small bags of suspected crack cocaine hidden in Botelho’s socks.
Dorchester context
The bust lands in the middle of a run of firearm recoveries in the neighborhood, including a May federal indictment tied to a Dorchester-based gun and drug trafficking probe, as reported by the Dorchester Reporter. Recent local coverage and Boston Police logs have also described several stops this month involving privately made “ghost guns” and high-capacity magazines, a pattern highlighted in a report on a teen busted with ghost gun and in department announcements.
Charges and court steps
Police said Botelho and a 16-year-old girl from Taunton were each charged with carrying a loaded gun without a license, carrying a gun without a license, possessing ammunition without a permit, possessing a large-capacity feeding device and possession of a Class B substance. Botelho was arraigned in the Dorchester division of Boston Municipal Court, where not-guilty pleas were entered on her behalf and a judge ordered her held pending a dangerousness hearing, with a pretrial conference scheduled for June 22, according to The Boston Globe.
What the law says
Massachusetts law imposes steep penalties for unlicensed possession of firearms and for possessing large-capacity feeding devices, detailed in Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 269 § 10. Federal officials and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have also stressed enforcement against privately made “ghost guns,” which lack serial numbers and complicate tracing, according to an ATF release.
What to watch
The 16-year-old will face the drug allegation in juvenile court while prosecutors and detectives continue to sort through the case. Police asked anyone with information or video related to the stop to contact Boston Police District B-3 detectives or send an anonymous tip through CrimeStoppers.
