3 plead guilty in weapons deal

Rifles meant to be purchased here for drug cartel in Mexico

Posted: Thursday, May 30, 2013


DENVER — Three persons who traveled to Pueblo from Texas to buy fully automatic rifles for the violent Zetas drug cartel in Mexico pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

They were among four persons arrested Oct. 8 in a monthslong undercover investigation by federal agents who arranged for the "deal" to occur in Pueblo.

The Zetas are one of Mexico's most brutal cartels, involved in violence over drug trade, cartel territory and the Mexican government's war against cartels.

A court filing on Wednesday by assistant U.S. attorney Kurt Bohn and the defendants states that the four persons were connected to a group, which regularly smuggled guns across the border at Del Rio, Texas.

Marcia Garcia, 36, Belia Monsivaiz, 38, and Joel Ernesto Monsivaiz Pina, 24, pleaded guilty to illegally having a machine gun. The rifles are defined by law as machine guns because they were fully automatic.

The fourth defendant, Raymundo Gonzalez Vasquez, 39, is scheduled to plead guilty June 19.

The filing states the investigation began last June when a resident of Mexico tried to buy rifles and handguns from an undercover agent of the Department of Homeland Security.

The agent spoke to various persons in Mexico and learned that guns were stored in Del Rio before being taken across the border in small quantities.

The four defendants arrived in Pueblo with $11,000 in cash to buy 11 AK-47 rifles, not knowing the "sellers" were federal agents. Authorities swooped down on the four when the "sale" occurred, Wednesday's filing states.

The arrests occurred at Open Air Storage, 4230 W. 11th St., where agents had the rifles in a gun crate in a truck bed.

U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn is scheduled to sentence the defendants later this year.

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