JEFFERSON, La.-- Federal agents seized hundreds of firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition from a suburban New Orleans gun store Wednesday, accusing the owner and two employees of illegal sales that have helped fuel a burgeoning crime problem in the area.

More than 2,300 firearms sold from Elliot's Gun Shop in the past five years have been tied to crimes in the metropolitan area, including 125 to murder investigations and 500 to illegal drug crimes, said Dave Harper, special agent in charge for the New Orleans field division of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

"Those arrested today were clearly fueling the violent crime problem in the New Orleans area," Harper said. "We're confident we have eliminated a major source of crime guns in the New Orleans area."

Moving vans backed up to shop and a tent was set up next door. In the tent, agents from the Secret Service and the ATF tagged and packed away hundreds of handguns.

Authorities said they uncovered a scheme at the shop that included forging law enforcement officers' signatures and using a photocopy of the officers' law enforcement credentials to purchase handguns from a New York-based distributor at discounted prices.

The distributor has cooperated with the investigation and is not suspected of any wrongdoing, Harper said.

The gun shop also allegedly helped a man -- who turned out to be an informant -- make an illegal gun purchase as a straw purchase, which is when someone who is eligible to buy firearms fills out the paperwork and buys the firearm, then gives it gun to someone prohibited from buying the weapon because of a criminal record.

Harper said guns sold from the store had an extremely short "time to crime," or the time from the sale of the firearm to the recovery of the firearm during a crime investigation.

Arrested were Herman Eicke, 65 of Kenner, along with Jefferson residents Timothy Harris, 54, and Rebecca Zitzmann, 42.

Eicke is legally the shop's owner, but Harris was the one who really ran the business, Harper said. Harris originally opened the shop under the name Elliot's Small Arms, but he lost his license to sell firearms after being cited numerous times for record-keeping violations.

Eicke, who was one of Harris' employees, then applied for and received a license and the store reopened under the modified name.

"Harris was still running the business even though Eicke held the license," Harper said.

Harris and Zitzmann were arrested Wednesday morning at a vacation home they own on lakefront property in Woodville, Miss. Eicke was arrested while leaving his home in Kenner to go to work at the gun shop.

Harris and Eicke were charged with aggravated identity theft, over which the Secret Service has jurisdiction, while Zitzmann was charged with falsifying firearms records.

Harper declined to speculate about the possible sentences the suspects could get because the investigation was in its early stages and more charges could be forthcoming.

One of the reasons the raid took place at this point in the investigation was the concern that the continue operation of the store posed a threat to public safety, authorities said.

"The level of violence and the level of danger increased as a result of Elliot's and their activity over a number of years," said acting Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand, whose agency assisted in the 15-month investigation. "Our police contact with criminals with guns has gone up significantly and that created a problem for us out on the streets."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)