| | |  Americas & Beyond | October 2009 
Documents Detail Gun Smuggling from Texas to Mexico
 Jim Douglas - WFAA-TV
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October 27, 2009
Fort Worth - Federal investigative documents obtained by News 8 have revealed the details behind extensive gun smuggling from the Dallas-Fort Worth area to drug gangs in Mexico.
The documents show precisely how suspected gun runners allegedly bought their weapons, hid them in local houses and then smuggled them to hit men working for Mexican drug lords.
Federal agents had much of the operation under surveillance.
According to a complaint against five suspects, who all appeared in federal court in Fort Worth, a hit man for the La Familia drug cartel placed orders for specific firearms.
A confidential informant inside the operation told investigators told of one single man hauling 30 to 50 firearms to Mexico every week for months. He would recruit buyers to purchase up to 20 assault rifles at a time, documents revealed.
ATF agents said the smugglers also bought devastating 50-caliber sniper rifles in North Texas to sell in Mexico. The money, they said, came from the sale of methamphetamine smuggled into Dallas from Mexico.
According to the complaint, the firearms were stored at various locations in Fort Worth and then stashed in a five-acre compound in Cleburne before being shipped in convoys to the border.
The Cleburne property was vacant when agents raided it last week. But, documents show investigators obtained ground and air surveillance video as well as wiretapped conversations. Agents followed one shipment from Fort Worth to the Mexican border, which was where they seized 33 guns and 11,000 rounds of ammunition.
The suspect refused to talk, telling investigators he feared the people he was delivering guns to more than he feared prison in the United States.
Email jdouglas(at)wfaa.com
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