America's guns being used to kill U.S. law enforcement

America's guns being used to kill U.S

America's guns being used to kill U.S. law enforcement

By Michael Webster: Syndicated Investigative Reporter. Feb 1, 2011 at 1:30 PM. PT.

Federal investigators say the guns used to kill a U.S. immigration agent in Mexico last month and the U.S. Border Patrol Agent last Dec in Arizona has been traced to U.S. gun dealers. Federal investigators say the gun used to kill a U.S. immigration agent in Mexico has been traced to a Dallas-area man.

Agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested the man and two other suspected gun smugglers in raids in Lancaster, Texas, a southern Dallas suburb.

ATF spokesman Tom Crowley is referring questions about further details to the U.S. Justice Department

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata was killed in the Feb. 15 attack at a roadblock in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosi. Agent Victor Avila was wounded.

Arizona news reports that the gun used in the shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry come from a Phoenix gun shop. And that the agents looked the other way while the guns were smuggled into Mexico.

Several federal agents have informed news outlets that U.S. Agents here at home and in Mexico have been killed at the hands of suspected Mexican Drug Cartel criminal gang members using U.S.-bought assault rifles. They charge that ATF agents were aware of the transactions and turned a blind eye. The question than is why?

A CBS investigativereportr numerous agents who sought anonymity to express their disgust at the strategy of letting the U.S.-bought weapons "walk" during a 15-month period to allow for intelligence gathering.

Thecase came in January, but not before as many as 2,500 weapons "walked," most of them straight into the hands ofMDC's who made 2010 the deadliest since Mexico's president begin the Mexican war on drugs 6 years ago.

However, what's clearly worse for the U.S. agents and at least one U.S. legislator who wrote two letters to the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) inquiring about the case and what causes their outrage is that several of these weapons are tied to the mid-December ambush of a CBP special unit on the Arizona-Mexican border, in which Agent Brian Terry was killed.

"We were fully aware the guns would probably be moved across the border to drug cartels where they could be used to kill," one agent told CBS.

Yet they still "walked."

Recent cases such as the X Caliber case chronicled in InSight with Frontline, the Center for Public Integrity and the Investigative Reporting Workshop, which was thrown out of an Arizona court show that agents walk a tricky, political and emotionally charged line when they investigate gun dealers and purveyors. The judge in the X Caliber case, for instance, would not allow the Arizona state prosecutors who brought the case to court to talk about violence in Mexico.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has asked U.S. President Obama to stem the tide of U.S. weapons being smuggled into Mexico a subject surely to be brought up this week while the Mexican president visits Washington again this week. Many Mexican . authorities blame the United States for much of the violence by allowing the guns to enter into Mexico which they believe has led to the deaths of over 35,000 of its citizens, including hundreds of policemen, judges, and politicians.

As a result and in response to Calderon's request, the U.S. began "Project Gunrunner," which, among other things, stationed hundreds of new agents along the U.S. Mexican border. But instead of stopping the weapons, the agents watched.

Mexico's federal police have arrested a founding member of the brutal Zetas drug cartel, who they believe ordered the killing of U.S. Agent Jaime Zapata. However the Mexican government is claiming the ambush by the Zetas was a mistaken indemnity issue.

A man arrested Flavio Mendez Santiago, 35, who controlled drug smuggling routes and the kidnapping of Central American migrants in southern Mexico, was arrested along with a bodyguard outside Oaxaca City. He was in charge of operations in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Veracruz, said Federal police anti-drug chief Ramon Pequeno.

Pequeno said Mendez Santiago, known as "El Amarillo" or "The Yellow One," controlled the smuggling of Central and South American migrants and was in charged of moving them to the northern states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, on the border with Texas.

The Zetas are also suspected in the disappearance of more than 40 Central American migrants in Oaxaca last month. The travelers were last seen Dec. 16 near the city of Ixtepec along the sun-scorched transit route for thousands who ride northbound freight trains.

The gang is blamed for massacring 72 migrants in August in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

Mendez Santiago also controlled the main overland drug smuggling routes from Central America, Pequeno said.

Mendez Santiago, a former soldier, was recruited in 1993 by the Gulf cartel and years later served as bodyguard for then leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen.

The federal government had offered 15 million pesos, about $1.2 million, for information leading to his arrest.

Formed from a small group of elite soldiers based in Tamaulipas who deserted to work for the Gulf drug cartel, the Zetas earned their notoriety for brutality by becoming the first to publicly display their beheaded rivals.

The Zetas began gaining independence from the Gulf cartel after Cardenas Guillen's extradition to the U.S. in 2006 and finally split from their former bosses last year. They have since been fighting for control of northeast Mexico, the traditional home base of the Gulf cartel.

That fight raged on Tuesday.

Five mutilated bodies were dumped in the central plaza of the small town of Montemorelos southwest of the industrial city of Monterrey, according to spokesman for Nuevo Leon state Public Safety Department, which oversees police.

The severed head of one was left on top of a message threatening a rival gang, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the events. The text of the message was not revealed.

Two explosive devices also were detonated later in the evening Tuesday in front of police buildings, including in the small town of Linares about 15 miles from Montemorelos and in the San Nicholas suburb of Monterrey. There were no injuries.

In Linares, a grenade was left in a car, causing damage to the police chief's SUV, said local police officer Angel Ramirez.

The shooting deaths of the two federal agents last week and three in two months highlight the heightened risk to federal investigators who are confronting increasingly violent fugitives, drug traffickers and other criminals, authorities said. The killing of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Mexico on Tuesday was followed by the slaying of a deputy U.S. marshal in West Virginia on Wednesday, an unusual confluence of events that left officials deeply troubled. A Border Patrol agent was fatally shot in Arizona in December. The killings, while not connected, come amid a broadening federal role in fighting violent crime that was once left mainly to state authorities, investigators said. Federal-state task forces on violent crime have multiplied since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bringing federal agents in closer contact with dangerous criminals. And the government says it is pouring resources into fighting drug trafficking and other crimes along the border with Mexico.

'You're seeing feds playing a much more active role in fighting violent crime, and that's putting us in harm's way,'' said Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. 'We're getting a lot more dangerous people off the street, but the more you do, the more you are exposed.'' ...

As a result authorities have arrested close to 700 people in an ongoing US-led international crackdown on Mexican drug cartels, US officials reported.

Operation Fallen Hero-Bombardier was launched Thursday, just over a week after the shooting death of US immigration officer Zapata in Mexico, with raids in the United States, Colombia, Brazil and Central America.

President Barack Obama meets tomorrow March 3 in Washington with Mexican President amid rising concerns about security along the US-Mexico border and drug violence that shows no sign of abating.

There were 676 arrests, US Marshals Service spokesman Alfredo Perez..

Authorities have seized $12 million in cash, 467 kilograms of cocaine, 21 pounds of heroin, almost 40,000 pounds of marijuana, 282 weapons, and 94 vehicles, Perez said.

Jaime Zapata, 32, and a second agent for theICE, came under fire on February 15 while driving in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi in a region plagued by drug violence. Zapata died from his wounds.

"This coordinated effort shows that ICE special agent Jaime Zapata will not be forgotten," said Robert Rutt, special agent in charge of ICE-Homeland Security investigations in Houston.

The Mexican army said Wednesday it captured a suspect, Julian Zapata Espinosa, who was identified as the leader of a group of hit men for the Zetas gangs..

Zapata Espinosa allegedly confessed to the attack but said that the US agents' armored car had been confused with one belonging to a rival gang, Mexican media reported.

"While the murder is personal to ICE, we are arresting transnational gang members and drug traffickers who have links to Mexican cartels because of their criminal activity and not simply out of retaliation," Rutt said.

In addition to raids in several US states, other operations have been carried out in Central America, Brazil and Colombia, according to the FBI

The killing of US agent Zapata was the first in Mexico since Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was kidnapped, tortured and killed while working undercover for the US Drug Enforcement Administration 26 years ago.

The shooting deaths of two federal agents last week and three in two months highlight the heightened risk to federal investigators who are confronting increasingly violent fugitives, drug traffickers and other criminals, authorities said. The killing of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Mexico on Tuesday was followed by the slaying of a deputy U.S. marshal in West Virginia on Wednesday, an unusual confluence of events that left officials deeply troubled. A Border Patrol agent was fatally shot in Arizona in December. The killings, while not connected, come amid a broadening federal role in fighting violent crime that was once left mainly to state authorities, investigators said. Federal-state task forces on violent crime have multiplied since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bringing federal agents in closer contact with dangerous criminals. And the government says it is pouring resources into fighting drug trafficking and other crimes along the border with Mexico.

'You're seeing feds playing a much more active role in fighting violent crime, and that's putting us in harm's way,'' said Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. 'We're getting a lot more dangerous people off the street, but the more you do, the more you are exposed.'' ...

Michael Webster Syndicated Investigative Reports are read worldwide, in 100 or more U.S. outlets and in at least 136 countries and territories. He publishes articles in association with global news agencies and media information services with more than 350 news affiliates in 136 countries. Many of Mr. Websters articles are printed in six working languages: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish. With ten more languages planed in the near future.

He served as a trustee on trade Union funds. A noted Author, Lecturer, Educator, Emergency Manager, Counter-Terrorist, War on Drugs and War on Terrorist Specialist, Newspaper Publisher. Radio News caster. Labor Law generalist, Teamster Union Business Agent, General Organizer, Union Rank and File Member Grievances Representative, NLRB Union Representative, Union Contract Negotiator, Workers Compensation Appeals Board Hearing Representative.

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