Posted on 03/10/2009 4:48:41 PM PDT by kellynla
CBS) In Phoenix Monday, a gun dealer went on trial for supplying assault rifles to Mexican drug gangs who are locked in a bloody war with authorities -- and each other. CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports on a case that's being watched closely in both the United States, and in Mexico.
In the escalating drug war south of the border, Mexican cartels supply the drugs, but the guns largely come from the United States.
"Firearms trafficking to Mexico is a huge problem," says Phoenix ATF agent William Newell. "Drugs go north, guns come south."
George Iknadosian is accused of being a top gun-supplier. When government agents raided his Phoenix gun shop last May, they found hundreds of weapons allegedly destined for Mexico. He's now on trial, accused of knowingly selling more than 700 guns to so-called straw buyers - U.S. citizens who buy the guns legally and then turn them over to a trafficker.
"They get $100 for their trouble, and the trafficker will take the gun down to Mexico and sell it for exponentially more than they pay here," says ATF agent Peter Forcelli.
As many as 2,000 firearms are believed to cross the border into Mexico every day. And they are often assault weapons, Tracy reports.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Wouldn't it be cheaper, and more efficient, to just bribe a few customs officials and import AKs by the container. On the world market those, and probably some (Iranian, Chinese) M-16/M-4 knockoffs are cheaper than semiautomatic AKs and ARs in the US. It's not like these thugs don't have smuggling skills.
That's got to be the biggest PoC lie in the whole article.
(Looks like an M240, 7.62x51 belt fed machine gun, although it could be the FN MAG 58, from which it is derived)
See B.S. living up to it's name, and working hand in glove with the dregs of federal "law enforcment", the BATFE.
Believe what you like, but your little Egyptian gun dealer was no “Boy Scout.” And was one of 6600 licensed gun dealers along the Mexican border.
From an earlier article:
“Over the two years leading up to his arrest last May, he sold more than 700 weapons of the kind currently sought by drug dealers in Mexico, including 515 AK-47 rifles and one .50 caliber rifle that can penetrate an engine block or bulletproof glass, the ATF said.
Based on the store’s records and the statements of some defendants, investigators estimate at least 600 of those weapons were smuggled to Mexico. So far, the Mexican authorities have seized seven of the Kalashnikov-style rifles from gunmen for the Beltrán Leyva cartel who had battled with the police.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/26/america/26borders.php?page=2
I got a feelin......that for the next 60 days, everytime anything larger than firecracker goes off, it will be front page news and linked somehow to how out of control the U.S. “Assault Weapons” laws are.
AND how they desperately need fixin so that we all become convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt ....that...................................................................
“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.”
Gee, a gun dealer, with a store and everything, sold 700 intermediate power carbines over two years. Who'd a thunk it. I bet every purchaser passed the instant background check. But of "of the type sought", is pure BS. Why would "drug dealers" want semi-auto clones of AKs, when they could just as easily smuggle full auto, real AKs, bought for less money?
Now the .50 might be something a drug gang might want, but notice there is no evidence that any of those 700 weapons or the .50 actually went to Mexico. Of course even if some did, that's not the fault of the dealer who made a sale *approved* by the government.
juxatapose this with how frigging cheap full auto firearms are in most 3rd world countries where there has been recent serious insurrection
why can’t Mexicans get weapons cheaper from Colombian FARC or maybe even the Paras thrown in their dope planes..no shortage of nice toys in Colombia, Salvador, Newly Sandy Nicaragua, Guatemala, corrupt military in Honduras....and so forth
personally I think the BATF may be embellishing abit in job justification
From the link posted by Kellyna:
And it adds: “Furthermore, these terrorist groups have established multimillion [dollar] contracts in order to sell weapons to Mexican and Colombian narcotics traffickers,” that are commercialized by “criminal providers from Yemen, Kuwait, Syria, Argentina, Brazil and Bulgaria.”
Blatant lies and hyperbole are not enough to pass my "sniff" test.
I can’t imagine a Mara toting a rifle that weighs over half what he does.
So, believe what you like...it's still a free country.
But in the meantime, I will continue to fight for secure borders and they can keep their drugs & we'll just keep our guns, thank you!
There are Armenians in Egypt just as there are in every other Mideast country. (i.e. all over the former Ottoman Empire.)
No doubt, but that is not the same thing as the drug cartels and gangs getting them. They have their own, cheaper and better, sources.
It might be folks wanting some protection *against* the druggies.
Before all our restrictions on firearms for our own people, there's no doubt lots of guns went to Mexico, and handguns as well as some semi-auto rifles likely still do, since they are very difficult to obtain legally there as well.
But all those full autos aren't coming from US guns shops or gun shows. If some are coming from the US, they are stolen, or otherwise diverted, from the military and police.
I can, guys with a .50 can't move fast anyway. Besides not all Mexicans are small. The father of one of our exchange students from southern Mexico, and her brother, are not small men, in fact they are bigger than I am, and even when I went into the AF, I weighed just over 200 lbs @ 5'11". (I weigh "just a little more" now, and am marginally shorter).
like I said...believe what you like
Seal the border and end the trillion dollar war on a $.05 weed and the cartel's would go belly up no matter who sold them what firearms.
However, every one of those little "army ants" I've seen has been an emaciated little twerp. I was alluding to the MS-13 bangers you hear about in the news.
Think about it...
The supplied and trained Mexican personnel then sell or rent out their U.S. trained and supplied services and weapons to the highest paying drug cartels. No, your government doesn't want you and me making that connection. That would hamper their efforts to ban the guns that our own legal citizens buy to protect themselves. It damages their credibility in the U.S.
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