Arizona, Sonora to sign deal to help fight gunrunning

Published: 06.21.2008

Associated Press

PHOENIX - The governors of Arizona and the northern Mexican state of Sonora are expected to sign a deal Saturday aimed at combatting gunrunning and sharing databases of fugitive felons on both sides of the border.

The deal to be signed by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours Castelo will make Sonora the first Mexican state to trace illegal weapons.

The states also will promise to work on improving border entry points and share more information to combat drug smuggling. Other terms call for bolstering responses to border-spanning disasters and the development of digital maps to improve responses to emergencies.

Until now, only Mexican federal agents have had access to the data from tracing seized weapons. Under the new agreement, Sonora state police will have the same access, just as police throughout the United States.

8 tons of cocaine, 3 machine guns, 25 years

The Associated Press

Published: 05.30.2008

A man was sentenced in Tucson on Thursday to 25 years in prison in the funneling of more than 17,000 pounds of cocaine through a drug tunnel on the Arizona-Mexico border, officials said.

Francisco Valle-Hurtado, 38, of Naco, Son., guarded cocaine loads with a machine gun after they passed through the tunnel in Naco between 1996 and 1999, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

The 200-foot tunnel connected a mobile home on the Arizona side with a walled-in space between two houses on the Mexican side.

During the investigation, an additional 2,600 pounds of cocaine, three machine guns and $1.5 million were seized, the office said.

ATF agent says cartel hit men's guns from El Paso

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 05/22/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT

High-powered rifles and handguns used by drug cartel hit men waging a bloody war in Mexico have been traced to suspected gun smugglers in El Paso, an ATF agent testified Wednesday at a federal detention hearing in El Paso.

Money and weapons flowing from the United States fuel drug trafficking and organized crime in Mexico, to the tune of about $10 billion a year, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico's deputy federal attorney general for international affairs, said Wednesday as representatives from the U.S. and Mexico gathered in Austin to discuss border security.

It was the profits from illegal gun sales that allegedly motivated Juan Carlos Meza, 23, to sell at least 19 firearms bought at El Paso gun stores to suspected hit men, an ATF agent testified at the detention hearing for Meza in the federal courthouse in El Paso.

Meza, who is a citizen of Mexico but a legal resident of El Paso, was denied bond Wednesday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Norbert Garney, who described Meza as a potential flight risk and a "danger" because of the nature of the crime.

Arizona AG says major gun trafficking operation broken up

The Associated Press
Published: 05.06.2008

Federal and state officials said they broke up a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking operation on Tuesday that provided violent Mexican drug cartels with hundreds of weapons.

The owner of a gun shop called X Calibur Guns, George Iknadosian, 46, knowingly sold at least 650 firearms to drug cartels, according to officials with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The firearms ranged from high-end semiautomatic pistols to assault-style rifles.

"These are weapons of war for the cartels and they're procuring them here by illegal means," Peter Forcelli, an ATF supervisory special agent, told KTVK-TV in Phoenix.

The investigation into X Calibur began 11 months ago, and in that time, undercover agents with ATF and Phoenix police have gone into the store and bought guns after indicating they were to be trafficked to Mexico, ATF special agent Carlos Baixauli told The Associated Press.

Agents raided the store Tuesday and arrested Iknadosian, a Glendale resident. Also arrested were two Mexican brothers legally living in the Phoenix metro area.

Baixauli said the brothers, identified as Hugo Gamez, 26, and Cesar Gamez, 28, worked for a major Mexican drug cartel.

U.S. arms fuel Juárez battle

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 04/09/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT

A weapons arsenal, including two high-powered .50-caliber sniper rifles, seized by the Mexican army earlier this year in Juárez, was part of the illegal flow of firearms from the U.S. that authorities are attempting to halt, an ATF spokesman said Tuesday.

"We are trying to ease the violence. ... The violence (in Mexico) is with weapons coming from this country," said Special Agent Tom Crowley, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire arms and Explosives.

The latest case comes amid what a senior U.S. counter-drug official described as a battle for control of Juárez between the Sinaloa drug cartel and Juárez drug cartel, which has allied itself with a faction of the Gulf cartel and the Zetas, an assassins group founded by Mexican army deserters.

ATF officials said that Mexican soldiers seized 25 rifles, including the .50-caliber rifles, plus five pistols, body armor and ammo on Feb. 13 at safe house in the Pradera Dorada area of Juárez.

The ATF traced some of the weapons to "straw purchases," or firearms bought by one person for someone else, in Arizona.

Last week, ATF agents in Arizona arrested Victor Varela, the alleged leader of the gun-trafficking ring suspected of supplying weapons -- as well as attempting to buy an automatic M-60 machine gun -- to the Juárez cartel in Palomas, Mexico, the ATF stated.

The Arizona Republic reported that the .50-caliber rifles were bought in Maricopa County and that the ring's "moneyman has since been dismembered."

U.S. says it nabs gunrunner arming Mexico drug gangs

PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. police have arrested the alleged leader of a gunrunning ring supplying high-powered rifles and pistols to Mexican gangs battling for a key drug smuggling route, authorities said on Thursday.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said police nabbed Victor Varela, 23, in Tucson, Arizona, on Wednesday on charges that he fraudulently purchased .50 caliber rifles and other firearms through a confidential informant.

William Newell, the senior ATF agent in Phoenix, said the weapons were bound for cartels in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

"The quick action by ATF in this investigation exemplifies our commitment to cut off the illegal flow of firearms to violent criminals in the United States and Mexico," Newell said.

Late last month the Mexican government sent soldiers and heavily armed federal police to the gritty Mexican border city, where drug gangs locked in an all-out turf war have killed more than 200 people since January.

ATF said Varela acquired a number of firearms, including handguns and several .50 caliber "Barrett" rifles, through illegal third-party sales called "straw purchases."

The firearms were smuggled into Mexico through border crossings in Columbus, New Mexico.

6 arrested in suspected arms smuggling incident

SHERYL KORNMAN

Published: 04.01.2008

Two Tucsonans and four Mexicans were arrested in the seizure of a .50-caliber sniper rifle, handguns and 3,500 rounds of ammunition intended for use in Mexico, according to a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tucson.

Louie Garcia, assistant special agent in charge, said the sniper rifle - similar to those used by hunters - was taken by agents from a car stopped southeast of Tucson over the weekend. Agents had been tipped the car might be carrying illegal weapons.

He said agents in the binational Border Enforcement Security Task Force working on the investigation, called "Armas Cruzadas," believe the weapons were to be smuggled into Mexico for use by Mexican drug cartels or human traffickers.

"This is part of the fight against organized crime in Mexico, one of the top priorities of the new administration of President Felípe Calderón," said Alejándro Rámos Calderón, spokesman for the Mexican consul in Tucson. "Some of these criminals get their weapons from the United States," he said.

Operation to stop flow of firearms to Mexico

By Chris Roberts / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 01/17/2008 12:21:14 AM MST

Taking aim at smugglers supplying weapons to Mexican drug cartels, federal law enforcement officials on Wednesday announced they are strengthening efforts to identify people and routes involved in the illegal trade.

Michael J. Sullivan, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, traveled from Washington, D.C., to announce that the bureau will spend more than $10 million annually to add 35 special agents and 15 investigators to its Southwest border operations. In the past two years, the bureau has dedicated about 100 agents and 25 investigators to the region, officials said.

"Drug trafficking organizations have made life on the border increasingly dangerous," Sullivan said during a news conference at the

El Paso Intelligence Center, known as EPIC. "We've done a lot over the last couple of years, but clearly this public safety threat requires that we do more."