RI Man Caught With More Than 200 Guns: Feds

BURRILLVILLE, RI — A Rhode Island man was arrested Thursday after police said he was caught with hundreds of guns and pounds of ammunition.

Ronald Andruchuk, 37, of Burrillville, was charged in federal court with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, false statements in an application to purchase firearms and causing false records to be kept by a federally licensed firearm dealer.

Prosecutors said the guns and the ammunition were discovered in Andruchuk's home after officers came to his house for the ninth time in recent months for reports of shots fired.

Shots were still being fired as officers arrived, several of which traveled within four feet of police officers' heads, prosecutors said. According to court documents, Andruchnuk was found wearing a bulletproof vest and was carrying four guns and methamphetamine.

Police then searched the home and said they found 211 guns and thousands of bullets. Prosecutors said Andruchuk shared the house with his wife and three young children.

How Andruchuk got the guns: Prosecutors

In Fall 2021, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), learned that between July 2021 and November 201, Andruchuk bought 169 guns from federally licensed gun dealers, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said Andruchuk lied on his ATF applications to buy the guns.

Andruchuk was also arrested in August 2019. According to prosecutors, Cranston police officers saw him purchasing drugs. Police said they seized oxycodone pills, morphine and naloxone. He admitted to officers he bought the drugs and said he had a substance abuse problem, prosecutors said.

Then in December 2021, police in Millbury, Massachusetts, found two guns and drugs in the drop ceiling inside a bathroom of a retail store in town, after Andruchuk left the bathroom, prosecutors said. One of the guns was listed as belonging to Andruchuk, but he did not have a license to possess firearms in Massachusetts, according to prosecutors.