Posted on 08/11/2010 4:17:45 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
OKLAHOMA CITY -- A former Oklahoma state drug agent is at the center of a federal investigation. Fernando "Frank" Reyes is accused of hiring people to buy guns -- including AK-47s -- and then selling them to people who would take them to Texas and then to Mexico.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began investigating Reyes in May. "We find this very surprising and very disturbing, if true, because we put a lot of trust in our agents, and we have some of the best of the best working here," said Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spokesman Mark Woodward. "So, this was very surprising to us."
After agents started keeping tabs on Reyes, they arranged for an agent to sell him a gun. They tailed him on a trip to Texas, where he was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy in Lewisville on July 25 for speeding.
>> Okla. Bureau of Narcotics Agent Arrested
Inside a briefcase, the deputy found two checks for more than $33,000, investigators said. Also inside the briefcase were two pistols and a notebook containing records of sales totaling more than $40,000. "We want to make it very clear that these are gun charges and this was one agent working on his own, outside the agency on his own time," Woodward said.
So what’s going on with this? He’s buying neutered US-legal AKs at top-dollar US prices and selling them across the border to people who can buy boxcar-loads of real ones from their choice of Central American countries for next to nothing.
Either I’ve missed something here, or this REALLY doesn’t smell right.
“As if the crooks buy their guns legally. We tracked a van from Mexico, entering through Arizona, with a load of AK-47s for the 18th Street Gang in LA. Recently 10,000 AKs landed in Mexico destined for the Cartels at $40.00 a piece from one of our “allies” in eastern Europe.”
http://www.officer.com/interactive/2010/08/10/the-assault-weapons-ban/
You’re right, this REALLY doesn’t smell right.
Well, you want reliability or you want price, when the purpose is to keep the rival gang attacks at bay?
Look, if you can move drugs undetected, you can move guns undetected.
It is that simple.
A full auto AK for $40 bucks? Can we get a little of that flowing this way? I mean, as long as our border is as porous as a sea sponge and all.
It doesn’t take much of an armorer to sift through a Freightliner-load of dirt-cheap Salvadoran AKs to make two-thirds that number of decent shooters. Just a bit labor-intensive skill, which Los Zetas have on the shelf.
Or was that sarcasm?
Why would they buy expensive guns here and take them to Mexico. You could probably buy them in quantity in south America for much less?
If they have competent gunsmiths, they certainly could winnow out the obviously bad guns and cobble together some reasonably good ones. We’re talking about folks who are rolling in the dough (thanks to prohibition pricing which keeps the whole sordid thing going), and can afford to pay ten times the price for something that they can count on to work right out of the box. Anyhow that’s my take. No, that’s not the source I would use if I were trying to raise up a gang on the cheap and considered the gang (and myself) very expendable.
I’d bet the checks were for drugs, not guns.
Folks are focusing on the AK47 notion. But have you tried to buy a Barret sniper rfile lately, or a dozen new .45 semi-auto pistols newfrom a distributor? Try picking up a dozen Kel-Tec semi-auto folding rifles. The agent was probably tasked to provide top of the line new weaponry. $33,000 would outfit a couple dozen drug guards and their boss, but it isn’t going to outfit a small army with anything other than risky used AKs, etc.
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