In his teens, Nathaniel Jones took part in a burglary, a carjacking, a nightclub shooting, a store robbery and the cocaine trade, according to police and court records. Now he'll probably have gray hair before he sees freedom again.

His undoing was making deals with men behind the counter at Colur Tyme Tattoos and Things. The south Augusta tattoo parlor was actually an undercover police operation that netted more than a hundred arrests and crippled the city's street gang networks.

Mr. Jones, 20, will face 30 years in federal prison, officials announced this week. U.S. District Judge Dudley H. Bowen Jr. gave him the heftiest punishment levied so far on anyone charged in last fall's Operation Augusta Ink. Police identified him as one of the operation's top targets.

A 2007 graduate of Academy of Richmond County, Mr. Jones was charged with commercial business robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle, possession and sale of stolen vehicles and distribution of cocaine, among other crimes. He pleaded guilty to two counts of using a firearm during a violent crime.

U.S. Attorney Edmund Booth said in a statement that evidence linked him to the February 2007 shooting of a bouncer at Club Dreams and an April 2007 carjacking, both of which were solved during the 16-month sting.

Undercover officers from the Richmond County Sheriff's Office and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had criminals believing Colur Tyme was a great place to swap stolen goods and firearms for cash. In view of surveillance cameras, Mr. Jones brought in a Mercedes-Benz that had been hijacked the day before and a .40-caliber handgun that was matched through ballistics to the club shooting, sheriff's investigators said.

Investigators also identified him as one of the two men who held up Richmond Hill Market on New Year's Day 2007, shooting owner Paul Patel in the left leg and abdomen. Mr. Patel was rushed to Medical College of Georgia Hospital and survived.