Authorities say a 19-year-old Austin man turned Instagram into a marketplace for firearms, allegedly selling guns to students in the Austin Independent School District. Vince Nguyen was arrested Tuesday, booked into the Travis County Correctional Complex on March 31, and is being held on a $50,000 bond.
According to investigators, the case started on Jan. 27 when an AISD school resource officer alerted Austin police about an Instagram account suspected of advertising guns to juvenile students. Detectives obtained a search warrant for the account and records from Meta, which they say identified Nguyen as the operator. Records reviewed by police reportedly show 137 conversations between Dec. 24, 2025, and Jan. 13, 2026, in which Nguyen allegedly coordinated multiple firearm sales and transfers, sometimes at his workplace at Trnd Setters Barbershop and at least once at his home on Copperfield Drive…