A 32-year-old Dorchester man has been accused of using a 3D printer in his Columbia Road home to manufacture guns and ammo that law enforcement officials say were meant to be trafficked on the streets of Boston.

Edmilson Andrade, 32, was arraigned in Dorchester court on Tuesday after a police raid on Monday uncovered what District Attorney Kevin Hayden called a “ghost gun mill.”

A ghost gun, Hayden said, is a gun that is made almost entirely with parts manufactured with a 3D printer. The parts are combined with metal parts – such as a slide – that cannot be made with a 3D printer. Putting them all together, people can create a brand-new firearm that is fully functioning.
“They found drugs, but they also found a full-scale manufacturing ghost gun mill,” said Hayden in a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s a little jarring for all of us,” he continued. “There is no doubt these guns were going to be trafficked. He wasn’t making them for his own use.”

Hayden mentioned that ghost gun had been taken from a student at Charlestown High School last week, but said he could not confirm it was connected to the find on Columbia Road this week.

He indicated that Boston Police had been executing a search warrant Monday morning related to the Drug Control Unit, and once inside were shocked to find the gun mill.

Hayden’s Boston First initiative, which looks to make gun crimes a priority, will be checking out the metal gun slides that were found on site, along with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), to identify where they came from. He said there were serial numbers on the metal slides – the top part of a firearm that springs forward to launch a bullet.

“We will use those to track them to their original purchase,” he said.

BPD officers during the Monday raid recovered 19 plastic lower pistol receivers of various colors; three lower receiver molds that were red; two high-capacity magazines; two high-capacity springs; one Taurus slider for a .380 caliber firearm; one SCCY 9mm slide for a firearm; numerous small internal firearm parts; four plastic lower rifle receivers; two plastic rifle rails; two plastic rifle grips; a plastic firearm replica with a firing pin loaded with a live round; one 9 mm firearm magazine; one .380 firearm magazine; one Hi-Point .380 caliber firearm slide; one 3D printer, and 548 rounds of various caliber of ammunition.