NEW YORK — Cops seized three 3D-printed guns and a 3D printer from an East Harlem day care as part of a sting operation that nabbed three people suspected of manufacturing ghost guns, NYPD officials announced Wednesday, Sept. 27.

The arrests came after the execution on Sept. 26 of three search warrants targeting the suspects, two of whom are minors.

The arrests and gun seizures come just days after a Bronx toddler died due to a suspected overdose from fentanyl at a Bronx daycare that police and prosecutors say doubled as a stash house for large quantities of the dangerous drug.

“This is a heartbreaking scenario, thinking that you’re dropping your child off to a place of safe haven just to find out that it was a dangerous environment,” Mayor Eric Adams said of the ghost guns bust.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner said the investigation resulting in the three arrests is “ongoing.” That probe is being spearheaded by the NYPD and investigators from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.

The guns allegedly manufactured by the suspects were made from a combination of parts procured online and through the use of parts produced by a 3D printer, according to police officials.

NYPD sources identified the 18-year-old arrested in the apartment on East 117th Street near Park Avenue as Karon Coley. He’s being charged with weapons possession, manufacture of a machine gun and acting in a manner injurious to a child, among other charges.

The probe began, according to Weiner, when investigators discovered a group of people that included minors buying ghost gun parts and 3D printing materials from online retailers. Those purchases were made through “fraudulent means” including identity theft, which led investigators to execute two search warrants, she said.

Those searches pointed investigators to Coley and led to the execution of a third search warrant at Coley’s family’s apartment, where cops found evidence showing he was involved in using 3D printers to create illegal guns, Weiner added.

“It’s important for us to underline that this private residence located in the 25th Precinct is also a licensed day care operated by the subject’s mother,” she said.

Inside, cops seized a printer, two completed firearms and one partially-completed automatic assault pistol “in the final stages of assembly,” Weiner added.

Two sources who live in the same building as the day care confirmed to the New York Daily News that the woman who runs it out of her two-bedroom apartment is April Coley. One of those neighbors, who asked to remain anonymous, said April Coley was questioned by the NYPD and that her son, Karon “Jamal” Coley, and a younger male were also arrested Sept. 26.

Contacted by phone, April Coley told the Daily News that she hadn’t been charged and declined further comment.

According to Weiner, cops also found “an obviously maltreated and neglected dog,” which the NYPD’s animal cruelty unit removed for evaluation.

The day care that shares an address with Coley’s residence is Alay’s Daycare. Calls and emails to Alay’s were not immediately returned.

Hours after the arrests were announced at NYPD headquarters, reporters and camera crews flooded the apartment building where Alay’s operates. Investigators from the Administration for Children’s Services also showed up trying to track down the day care’s proprietors.

One tenant, who lives down the hall and also asked to remain anonymous to avoid trouble with his neighbors, said that a woman and her son ran the day care, where parents typically picked their kids up in the afternoon — just hours before the search warrant was executed.

“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it,” the man said. “That’s crazy.”

Ghost gun seizures in the city have been trending upward over the last three years and have increasingly become a priority for the NYPD and prosecutors. In June 2022, Adams and New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced that they filed two lawsuits against gun distributors selling gun parts in an effort to skirt the law.

Weiner noted that in 2021, the NYPD seized 263 so-called privately manufactured firearms, and that the number recovered in 2022 nearly doubled, climbing to 436. So far this year, the NYPD has seized 290 of the guns — three times as many as were recovered by the same time last year, she said.

“Since 2020, our office has brought prosecutions, based on this collaboration, that involve seizures of 93 ghost gun parts, 66 ghost guns and firearms, 428 high-capacity magazines and 47 silencers,” Bragg said. “Those are prosecutions that made New York and Manhattan safer.”

Flight attendant found dead with cloth in mouth in Philadelphia hotel

PHILADELPHIA — An American Airlines flight attendant was found dead with a cloth in her mouth at a hotel near Philadelphia International Airport.

On Monday, Sept. 25, Philadelphia police responded to the Marriott Hotel near the airport at 10:41 p.m. A 66-year-old Hispanic female was found unresponsive with a cloth in her mouth and declared dead on the scene. No arrest or weapon was recovered. She was then transported to a medical examiner’s office, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department said.

“We are devastated by this news,” said Lindsey Martin, spokeswoman for American Airlines. “Our thoughts are with the family and colleagues, and we’re doing everything we can to ensure all affected have the support they need during this difficult time. We will continue to cooperate fully with local law enforcement in their investigation.”

According to ABC News Philadelphia, several sealed bottles of prescription drugs were found in the room and she was supposed to have checked out two days earlier. The name of the woman has not been released.

The investigation is ongoing with the department’s Homicide Detectives Division, according to Philadelphia police.

US will allow Israeli travelers into the country without visas

WASHINGTON — The United States has agreed to admit Israel into the elite group of countries whose citizens can travel to the U.S. without visas, despite questions over whether Israel meets a core U.S. requirement for the special status: that Israel allow Palestinian Americans to travel freely in its territory.

U.S. officials Sept. 27 announced the decision to grant Israel admission to the visa-waiver program, to which 40 mostly Western countries already belong.

“The designation of Israel into the Visa Waiver Program is an important recognition of our shared security interests and the close cooperation between our two countries,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a joint statement with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.

The decision comes after a two-month test period in which Israel was to prove its eligibility by eliminating long-standing restrictions on Palestinian Americans who attempt to travel in Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.