Thread: Feds crack down on buyers sending guns to Mexico

Feds crack down on buyers sending guns to Mexico

JJ Hensley - Sept. 17, 2010 11:50 AM
The Arizona Republic

A three-month operation by federal agents in Arizona and New Mexico recovered more than 140 weapons used in crimes in Mexico that were traced to purchases in Arizona, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced this morning.

Since June, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona has charged, convicted or sentenced 96 people on gun-related charges, 66 of whom were caught in the ATF operation.

The effort in Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque marked the second time that the agency deployed dozens of agents into an area in the United States known for gun trafficking in an effort to target so-called "straw purchasers" and send a message to others who may be tempted to buy a weapon on behalf of someone else.

The consequences of those purchases can be dire, said ATF Deputy Director Kenneth Melson. "As a result of these drug organizations and their thirst for money and power, lives are being lost to violence both on the Mexican side and on the Arizona said," Melson said. "ATF along with our Mexican counterparts embrace the need to cut off the supply routes of illegal weapons going from the United States into Mexico."

The operation required the cooperation of Mexican authorities. who supplied ATF agents with information on firearms seized at crime scenes there. Agents then traced the weapons to Arizona buyers, some of whom were charged with participating in a firearms trafficking conspiracy.

Two Mesa men, Alejandroi Medrano, 23, and Hernan Ramos, 22, received federal prison sentences of nearly four years for supplying 112 high-powered weapons to members of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Last year, the agency flooded the Houston area with 100 agents in a similar operation that resulted in the seizure of about 600 weapons.

The operation in Arizona and New Mexico, where 80 agents worked from May until early August as part of the agency's Gun Runner Impact Team, brought in about 1,300 weapons and more than 71,000 rounds of ammunition.

Dennis Burke, U.S. Attorney in Arizona said there was ample opportunity for agents to find buyers in Arizona who were supplying guns to criminals.

"We have a huge problem here," he said, standing near a table where agents had stacked dozens of high-powered weapons seized during the operation. "We have now become the gun locker of the Mexican drug cartels," Burke said.

The concerted ATF effort ended in August, but Melson announced Friday that the agency will have a new presence in seven cities around the country, including Sierra Vista, where groups of 10 agents will focus on disrupting the gun trafficking to Mexico.

"This is not the end of it," Melson said.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... z0zoZtGuKI

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
News Release
Public Affairs Division – Washington, DC
For Immediate Release

September 17, 2010

www.atf.gov
FY-10-20

Contact: Public Affairs Division

(202) 648-8500

ATF Announces 7 New Gunrunner Groups and Phoenix Gun Runner Impact Teams’ Successes

PHOENIX — Deputy Director Kenneth E. Melson of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today announced the formation of seven new Project Gunrunner firearms trafficking groups during a news conference in which he and Dennis K. Burke, United States Attorney, District of Arizona, announced the results of ATF’s Gun Runner Impact Team (GRIT) initiative, a nearly 100-day deployment of ATF resources to the Phoenix Field Division to disrupt illegal firearms trafficking by Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

As a result of the 2010 emergency supplemental appropriation for border security, ATF received $37.5 million for Project Gunrunner, ATF’s comprehensive firearms trafficking strategy to disrupt the illegal flow of firearms into Mexico. With this funding, ATF will establish and place firearms trafficking groups along traditional and newly-discovered firearms trafficking routes and hubs in Atlanta; Dallas; Brownsville, Texas; Las Vegas; Miami; Oklahoma City; and Sierra Vista, Ariz.

“Lives are being lost to violent crime every day on both sides of the U.S. and Mexico border,â€