HIGH POINT, N.C. (WGHP) — The High Point Police Department says officers made the single largest weapons bust in the city.

Officers seized 31 guns and illegal drugs from a home in northwest High Point in the 1500 block of Glenn Meade Drive near the intersection of Johnson Street and Skeet Club Road a week ago.

In the end, police arrested 26-year-old Alexander Kuzmanoff. He is facing possessing stolen goods and drug trafficking charges.

Investigators received several complaints about the suspect through Crime Stoppers of High Point.

We learned from Wednesday night’s public safety meeting that High Point officers seized a record number of 450 guns in 2022 and hope to top that number this year.

Their plan is to go after guns used in crimes and from people who are not allowed to carry them in the first place.

“That has always been a mission for us as a police department to target those illegal guns,” Chief Travis Stroud said.

At Wednesday night’s meeting, Stroud talked about how illegal guns are getting in the wrong hands.

“What it means is their going into unlocked cars. We see very few forced entries in vehicles. We have tons of ring cameras,” he said.

FOX8 asked how many guns have been stolen out of vehicles this year.

Police could not give us an exact number Thursday afternoon. but on Nov. 30 last year, a spokesperson told us in 45 vehicle break-ins, 50 guns were taken.

We also learned around 30 percent of guns seized in the city are taken at vehicle stops.

“That’s a lot of guns. We’re only touching the tip of the iceberg here…we’re going to continue to stop cars inside the city. It might be a minor vehicle violation,” Stroud said. “You still have to have reasonable probable cause to make the stop, but we need officers who are going to take the investigation further if that’s where it’s headed.”

Even while down 40 officers, High Point police can make key arrests with the help of the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.

ATF officers say the shell casings they find work like a fingerprint. The casings can be analyzed and matched, linking one shooting to another and helping investigators pinpoint which guns are used and who is firing them.

There are currently 11 NIBIN systems located throughout the state.

Over the last three years, more than 21,000 acquisitions of shell casings put into the system have been made by law enforcement agencies in Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point.

This results in more than 10,000 leads with more than 4,000 in 2022 alone.