The hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan – which made headlines a week ago when a founder, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, was charged with shooting at cops – is the target of a federal gun-running probe, The Post has learned.

City police and federal law-enforcement sources said at least two members of the world-famous group are involved in a crime ring linking Staten Island to the small town of Steubenville, Ohio.

“These guys have all the money in the world, yet they’re stupid enough to get caught up in this,” said an NYPD source familiar with the investigation.

Officials said the band – which formed in the projects of Staten Island – is suspected of hiring friends to buy weapons in Ohio and bring them back to New York.

“Their friends are buying high-powered firearms, high quality,” said one source involved in the investigation. “We believe [Wu-Tang Clan] is having them bought for protection, for their friends, and to sell.”

A manager of the nine-member group, Walter Free, 30, has already been busted on federal gun charges stemming from the yearlong probe.

Last August, Free was charged in a Stuyvesant Town assault and found to be carrying a semi-automatic pistol later traced to Steubenville, a steel town with a population of around 22,000.

The town is near a rural compound where the band regularly goes to practice firing at targets for entertainment, sources say.

Steubenville – birthplace of Dean Martin and sports handicapper Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder – is also home to the family of one of the hip-hop group’s leaders, Robert Diggs, aka RZA.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and federal prosecutors refused to confirm or deny that Wu-Tang Clan is under investigation.

But sources said an ongoing probe was triggered by two murders. Both victims were friends of the band members, who are not suspects in the killings.

But the weapons used in both killings are linked to Steubenville.

In the first murder, Wisegod Allah – manager of rap act KillArmy – was shot dead in Steubenville in November 1997 after flashing a .357 Magnum at a group of Crips, Ohio authorities say.

In an unrelated murder a month later on Staten Island, two men in ski masks shot and killed Robert Johnson, 23, a friend of Wu-Tang Clan members.

The killing remains unsolved, but when the gun was linked to Steubenville, investigators here and in Ohio were tipped off to the band’s alleged gun-running activities, sources say.

Officials at the Wu-Tang recording label, Loud Records, had no comment, but Peter Frankel, who represents four Wu-Tang Clan members, said, “The investigation doesn’t make sense to me.

“They’re not in a position where they need the money,” Frankel said.

Only one of Frankel’s Wu-Tang Clan clients, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, has been charged in a gun case.

ODB, whose given name is Russell Jones, was busted in Brooklyn on Jan. 15 after he allegedly exchanged gunfire with cops during a traffic stop.

Police have not found the gun.

Other Wu-Tang Clan members whose names have turned up on police blotters include:

*Dennis Coles, aka Ghostface Killah, who was busted in Harlem in December 1997 for carrying a .357 Magnum loaded with hollow-point bullets. That case is pending. He had already pleaded guilty in a 1995 robbery case, but has yet to serve his six-month jail sentence.

*Clifford Smith, aka Method Man, who was charged in October 1997 with beating up a security guard at the Palladium. The charges were later dismissed.

*Diggs, who was acquitted after being charged with shooting a man in the leg in Steubenville in an argument over a girl.

On stage, Wu-Tang Clan – which means sword family and is derived from a martial-arts style – has been a smashing success. The group has had a string of hit records and many of its members have had successful solo projects.

The group also has a clothing line, Wu Wear, which features items from ski jackets to watches.