Many weapons seized in Sonora traced to ATF's 'Fast and Furious'

Brady McCombs Arizona Daily Star
July 27, 2011 12:00 am

Many of the weapons seizures in Mexico that alerted authorities to problems with the ATF's "Fast and Furious" operation occurred south of Arizona in Sonora, a report by congressional Republicans shows.

So far, officials are aware of 48 weapons recoveries in Mexico involving 122 weapons connected to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Mexican gun-smuggling investigation called "Operation Fast and Furious," according to a report prepared for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

The list of the 48 weapons recoveries shows 15 seizures in Sonora totaling 60 weapons, including the biggest recovery of them all - 42 weapons on Nov. 20, 2009, in Naco, Sonora, south of Bisbee, about 80 miles southeast of Tucson.

On that day, Mexican authorities discovered 41 AK-47s and one Beowulf .50-caliber rifle in a vehicle driven by a 21-year old woman, the report says. The woman told police she planned to transport the weapons "straight to the Sinaloa cartel," the report said.

All 42 weapons traced back to Fast and Furious straw purchases, the report says. Straw purchases are when gun smugglers pay somebody with no criminal record to buy a gun from a licensed dealer.

In the operation, the ATF allowed guns to be bought by known straw purchasers. The goal was to investigate how the drug smuggling operation worked in order to arrest and prosecute high-level operatives.

Twenty of the 42 weapons recovered in Naco that day had been purchased less than 24 hours earlier from gun stores in Arizona, the report said.

The report was released the same day as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing on the operation. There, William McMahon, the head of ATF's Western region, apologized for mistakes made during the operation but said they were only made out of zeal to track down weapons smugglers.

The report is based mainly on internal emails and interviews with two ATF officials who were working in Mexico during the operation: Darren Gil, attaché to Mexico, and Carlos Canino, then deputy attaché to Mexico.

"This is the perfect storm of idiocy," Canino says in the report. "You know what Gen. George Patton says, 'If we are all thinking alike, then nobody is thinking.' Right? Nobody was thinking here."

The other Sonoran weapons recoveries in the report occurred in Nogales, Agua Prieta, San Luis RÃ*o Colorado, Navojoa, Saric, Ciudad Obregon and Puerto Peñasco.

The congressional inquiries into the ATF operation began early this year after Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed during a shootout with suspected border bandits on Dec. 14 near Rio Rico. Two Romanian-made assault rifles were recovered at the scene that are believed to have been sold to straw buyers in Phoenix and tracked into Mexico under the operation.

"You know what Gen. George Patton says, 'If we are all thinking alike, then nobody is thinking.' Right? Nobody was thinking here."

Carlos Canino, ATF official, on Operation Fast and Furious

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 orbmccombs@azstarnet.com

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