Boxer Robert Guerrero was held on weapons charges after he arrived at an airport in New York and told staff: "I've got a gun."

The current Wbc welterweight champion headed to John F. Kennedy International Airport on Thursday (28Mar13) for a flight to Las Vegas and informed a ticket agent he had an unloaded pistol in a locked box in his luggage.

But Guerrero's honesty in declaring the weapon backfired when he was seized under tougher new laws over the possession of unlicensed firearms in New York.

The boxer, nicknamed 'The Ghost', was released after being arraigned on charges including criminal possession of a weapon.

A spokesman for fight organisers Golden Boy Promotions, who are staging Guerrero's upcoming bout with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in Sin City on 4 May (13), tells the New York Daily News, "He obviously wasn't aware that the different states have different laws. It's obvious that he wasn't trying to do anything illegal here and wasn't trying to harm somebody."