Pubdate: Tue, 16 Aug 2005
Source: Brownsville Herald, The (TX)
Copyright: 2005 The Brownsville Herald
Contact: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/contact.php
Website: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1402
Author: Sergio Chapa

GUNS HEAD SOUTH AS DRUG TRADE MAINTAINS NORTHWARD FLOW

MEXICO CITY -- High-powered weapons and ammunition are steadily moving 
south of the border as illegal drugs keep heading north, according to the 
U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

More than 600 people have been killed in acts of drug-related violence in 
Mexico since January. Almost one-fifth were reported in Nuevo Laredo where 
drug traffickers are engaged in an ongoing war for control of smuggling 
routes into the United States.

Violence fueled by guns and ammunition smuggled into Mexico have prompted 
American law enforcement officials to form a border crime task force and 
open a new federal firearms office in Laredo to help stem the flow.

Franceska Perot with the ATFA's regional office in Houston said the 
situation in the troubled border city prompted her agency to establish a 
satellite office there in June.

"There's always been a lot of firearms trafficking and a lot of work in 
Laredo for the ATF and other federal agencies," Perot said. "We've had a 
request (for a satellite office) in for years, but we've had a push now 
with the recent violence."

The Border Violent Crime Task Force was created in April. Although ATF 
hopes to establish a permanent field office in Laredo, Perot said current 
funding only allows for one full-time agent to work there with others 
agents coming out of the ATFA's field office in McAllen as needed.

Perot said the task force consists of members from various local, state and 
federal law enforcement agencies along the border working to share 
intelligence, build a common crime database and provide training to one 
another.

Although it has not been officially sanctioned by the U.S. Attorney 
General's Office, Perot said the group has met informally and has already 
appointed liaisons to work with their counterparts in Mexico.

Ramon Bazan, head of the ATF bureau in Mexico City, said cooperation 
between American and Mexican officials has reached its highest levels of 
cooperation to control weapons smuggling since the agency established its 
mission in Mexico in 1991.

"Once a weapon crossed over here, it was in a black hole," Bazan said of 
past weapons smuggling investigations in Mexico. "But now they are pursuing 
it (prosecutions) on both sides."

Bazan said ATF agents in Mexico routinely work with their Mexican 
counterparts to trace crime weapons back to who bought them in the United 
States and then use that information to prosecute smugglers on both sides 
of the border.

"They're jumping on the bandwagon and prosecuting," he said of Mexican law 
enforcement officials. "They're helping us prosecute people in the (United) 
States by gathering evidence and statements from the people they capture 
with weapons here. We're doing the same thing."

Figures obtained from the ATFA's office in Mexico City show that Mexican 
authorities seized 3,611 American-made guns and assault rifles used in 
violent crimes in 2004.

Although slightly less than half of those weapons were successfully traced 
back to where they were purchased, ATF figures show that 1,238 --more than 
80 percent --came from California, Texas and Arizona.

Bazan said most of those traced guns were obtained through "straw 
purchases" in which smugglers commission relatives, friends, acquaintances 
or in other cases complete strangers to buy weapons for them.

In Cameron County, 19 people in six cases have been prosecuted in federal 
court for making straw purchases or smuggling guns and ammunition into 
Mexico since January.

Exact figures are not available but Bazan said straw purchase 
investigations in the United States have lead to the arrests of weapons 
smugglers and purchasers in Mexico.

Gene Marquez with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' office 
in Mexico City said high-caliber guns and assault rifles are the weapons of 
choice for drug traffickers.

"You hear a lot about AK-47s being used because of their high capacity and 
large caliber that can penetrate car doors and everything else," Marquez said.

Bazan said the new levels of cooperation between the two governments would 
also allow American officials to extradite some weapons smugglers to face 
more charges in Mexico once they are done serving their sentences in the 
United States.

"They're going to use those statements to prosecute people here in Mexico 
that were ordering the weapons which was unheard of before."
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