More F & F guns show up....

Discussion in 'Politics' started by BTPost, Sep 10, 2011.


  1. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    2nd Arizona crime scene yields guns from ATF sting
    The Associated Press
    PHOENIX — Guns tied to a botched federal weapons-smuggling investigation have been recovered at a second Arizona crime scene, according to federal and state authorities.

    The Arizona Republic reported Saturday that two guns were found in the back of a stolen car in Maricopa last year that had rammed two Arizona Department of Public Safety vehicles.

    Federal agents contacted the DPS this week and said a trace of the guns revealed they were part of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sting in 2009 that inadvertently put hundreds of weapons bought at Arizona gun stores into the hands of Mexican criminals.

    The probe was known as Operation Fast and Furious.

    Two guns also were recovered at a December shootout in Rio Rico, where a Border Patrol agent was fatally shot.

    A congressional investigation of the program has turned up evidence that ATF lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation. Attorney General Eric Holder requested the inquiry now being conducted by the Inspector General's office at the Justice Department.

    U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has asked the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for a hearing as soon as possible on Operation Fast and Furious.

    McCain, a member of the committee, wrote in a letter that the panel must "ensure further damage from this operation does not persist."

    According to an investigative report compiled for two congressional committees investigating the operation, 122 weapons have been recovered at 48 crime scenes in Mexico.

    In addition, an unspecified number of weapons tied to Fast and Furious were recovered earlier this year when Mexican authorities raided a compound in Michoacan state to arrest members of La Familia cartel.

    The joint report for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary also details how guns from the ATF operation were used in the kidnapping and murder of a Mexican official's brother.

    It is unclear how many guns from Arizona made it to Mexico. Operation Fast and Furious was part of a multiagency federal drug-enforcement task force to trace weapon sales made to straw buyers working for Mexican cartels.

    Three Phoenix ATF agents told Congress that instead of interdicting the straw buyers, they were ordered to monitor sales and track the weapons up the cartel-leadership chain.

    Agents said that as many as 1,800 guns were sold and as many as two-thirds were smuggled into Mexico after they lost track of them. The goal of the operation was to use wiretaps on the straw buyers to snare high-ranking cartel members.

    Arizona DPS officials said the Maricopa incident took place in March 2010 when officers with the Motor Vehicle Theft Task Force attempted to stop a truck with two Mexican citizens inside.

    The driver refused to stop, and officers used their vehicles to block the road. Inside the car, officers recovered a pistol and an AK-47-type rifle.

    "It was found, after the fact, that the guns were part of Operation Fast and Furious," said DPS spokesman Bart Graves, adding that the weapons had little to do with the actual incident.
     
  2. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    My aching ancient tush. [loco]
     
  3. beast

    beast backwoodsman

    they wanna take away our guns so they can sell them at a profit to the criminals
     
  4. wideym

    wideym Monkey+++

    I don't understand what in the world the Justice Dept and ATF were thinking. Members of a notoriusly violent drug cartel don't rat out other members, they just do their time in American prisons gaining prestise among their kind and know if they testify they and their family will end up dead in a most horrible way.

    Also, high ranking cartel members don't bother with low level buyers in America, they have flunkies for that.
     
  5. Those Mexican gangs are gonna be one of the biggest groups to worry about WTSHTF...along with all of the other criminals that are still walking the streets.
     
  6. Tikka

    Tikka Monkey+++

    Probably create a crisis so 0bama could ban certain types of firearms.

    Issa, Grassley take

    Isn't it odd that such a low level "sting" operation was communicating with the White House??
     
    Cephus, BTPost and Sapper John like this.
  7. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    More F & F Stuff released....

    Secret recordings raise new questions in ATF 'Gunwalker' operation
    By Sharyl Attkisson Topics News ,Law and Order

    (Credit: CBS/AP) Updated 5:09 pm, Sept. 19, 2011 with comment from the Office of the Inspector Genera

    WASHINGTON - CBS News has obtained secretly recorded conversations that raise questions as to whether some evidence is being withheld in the murder of a Border Patrol agent.

    MORE: ATF Fast and Furious secret audio recordings

    The tapes were recorded approximately mid-March 2011 by the primary gun dealer cooperating with ATF in its "Fast and Furious" operation: Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Arizona. He's talking with the lead case ATF case agent Hope MacAllister.
    The tapes have been turned over to Congressional investigators and the Inspector General.

    As CBS News first reported last February, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to "walk" onto the streets without interdiction into the hands of suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels in its operation "Fast and Furious."

    The conversations refer to a third weapon recovered at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

    Agent: I was ordered to let guns into Mexico

    Court records have previously only mentioned two weapons: Romanian WASR "AK-47 type" assault rifles. Both were allegedly sold to suspects who were under ATF's watch as part of Fast and Furious.

    Also, a ballistics report turned over to Congressional investigators only mentions the two WASR rifles. The ballistics report says it's inconclusive as to whether either of the WASR rifles fired the bullet that killed Terry.

    Law enforcement sources and others close to the Congressional investigation say the Justice Department's Inspector General obtained the audio tapes several months ago as part of its investigation into Fast and Furious.

    Then, the sources say for some reason the Inspector General passed the tapes along to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona: a subject in the investigation. It's unclear why the Inspector General, who is supposed to investigate independently, would turn over evidence to an entity that is itself under investigation.

    A spokesman from the Office of the Inspector General today said, "The OIG officially provided the United States Attorney's Office with a copy of the recordings in question so that the USAO could consider them in connection with the government's disclosure obligations in the pending criminal prosecutions of the gun traffickers. Prior to receiving the tapes, the OIG made clear that we would have to provide a copy of the recordings to the United States Attorney's Office because they would need to review them to satisfy any legal disclosure obligations."

    (Listen to the audio)

    In the audiotapes, ATF Agent MacAllister tells Howard that a third weapon recovered at the Brian Terry murder scene last December is an SKS assault rifle. Agent MacAllister claims to know that the SKS "had nothing to do with" the Brian Terry murder and, unlike the WASR's, did not trace back to the Lone Wolf gun store.

    It's unclear why a weapon would be, in essence, missing from the evidence disclosed at the crime scene under FBI jurisdiction.

    Agent MacAllister and Howard (the gun dealer) also discuss various Republicans and Democrats in Congress who are investigating Fast and Furious. They express concern that whistleblower ATF special agent John Dodson has further evidence that could be damaging to the government.

    Transcript of the audio below:

    Agent: Well there was two.

    Dealer: There's three weapons.

    Agent: There's three weapons.

    Dealer: I know that.

    Agent: And yes, there's serial numbers for all three.

    Dealer: That's correct.

    Agent: Two of them came from this store.

    Dealer: I understand that.

    Agent: There's an SKS that I don't think came from.... Dallas or Texas or something like that.

    Dealer: I know. talking about the AK's

    Agent: The two AK's came from this store.

    Dealer: I know that.

    Agent: Ok.

    Dealer: I did the Goddamned trace

    Agent: Third weapon is the SKS has nothing to do with it.

    Dealer: That didn't come from me.

    Agent: No and there is that's my knowledge. and I spoke to someone who would know those are the only ones they have. So this is the agent who's working the case, all I can go by is what she told me.
     
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