In New Orleans on Thursday a Jefferson Parish Sheriff deputy testified about the incidents that led him to arrest two men driving what an FBI special agent called “a classic unsophisticated vehicle…used for assassination,” WVUE reports.

The deputy said that he had been alerted that two men had been seen driving a white van with stolen license plates. He spotted the van and followed it to a residence, where he approached it. Both the driver and passenger immediately exited the vehicle.

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The deputy confronted 72-year-old Dominick Gullo and 55-year-old Joseph Gagliano, and arrested them on suspicion of possessing stolen property. When he and fellow investigators examined the van, however, what they found was a vehicle designed for killing.

There were kitchen chairs bolted to the floor that faced out the van’s tinted windows; a Ruger semi-automatic rifle hidden in a side panel, along with a silencer; and an 8-foot-long piece of cannon fuse behind the driver’s seat.

According to James Bernazzani, a retired FBI special agent, “when you look at the silencer, the .22 is an assassin’s weapon of choice.”

After the police learned that both Gullo and Gagliano were convicted felons, the federal government added more indictments for possessing the rifle and the silencer. The pair are being held without bond awaiting federal trials while authorities attempt to link the van to area homicides.

[“Man Holding Gun, Isolated On White Background” on Shutterstock]