More Than 1,300 Guns Were Bought Illegally by Suspect Buyers
More Than 1,300 Guns Were Bought Illegally by Suspect Buyers Under ATF's 'Gunrunner' Program
By William La Jeunesse
Published May 04, 2011 | FoxNews.com
It is the closest thing to a smoking gun congressional investigators have in their probe of Project Gunrunner -- a program that was intended to stop the flow of guns to criminals in Mexico but instead allowed those guns to be smuggled to Mexico instead.
An internal memo from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives shows that U.S. officials allowed criminals to buy 1,318 guns worth nearly $1 million, even after they suspected the buyers were working for Mexican drug cartels, and that the agency's effort to stop the guns had "yielded little or no results."
That memo came to light Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Hearing and provided by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. The ATF memo shows a list of 15 suspects, all later indicted, who bought guns on behalf of Mexican cartels.
Those suspects are known in the trade as straw buyers, or people who legally purchase guns and illegally resell them, in many cases to Mexican cartel members across the border.
After buying 407 guns, they became suspects in Operation Fast & Furious, an offshoot of Project Gunrunner run specifically out of the Phoenix ATF office.
In a companion memo dated June 15, 2010, field agents say they recovered “179 crime guns in Mexico…and 130â€
