Feds intercept 300 high-powered weapons headed to Mexico
EL PASO, Texas – From El Paso to Laredo, Texas, federal officials are ramping up efforts to curb firearms smuggling to Mexico.
Those efforts paid off last Thursday with the seizure of 300 high-powered rifles and guns headed to Mexico from Dallas over the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge in Laredo.
Officers with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Anti-Terrorism and Contraband Enforcement Team watching traffic flow south spotted two approaching vehicles apparently traveling in tandem.
One was a Chevrolet Tahoe with Alabama license plates; the other a Chevrolet Silverado with Mexican tags. Both vehicles were hauling utility trailers, also with Mexican license plates.
The CBP officers stopped the vehicles, approached the drivers and told them to proceed to a secondary inspection area before they exited the country.
Court records show a CBP canine promptly alerted officers to anomalies in the trailers. The vehicles and haul were scanned with X-rays. After that, officers opened the trailer boxes, emptied unspecified contents and found hidden wall compartments.
Inside were tightly packed stacks of firearms and ammunition boxes.
According to a federal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, drivers Edgar Ramirez Diaz and his father, Emilio Ramirez Cortes, told Homeland Security Investigations agents they picked up the trailers in Dallas and were promised money for transporting them to Mexico.
The two allegedly admitted they knew they were smuggling guns to Mexico. The suspects told agents they have taken to Mexico pull trailers loaded with guns on 12 previous occasions, the complaint states.
The two trailers had 300 rifles and pistols concealed in the hidden compartments. A photograph submitted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office shows AR-15 and M4 carbine styled rifles.
Records show the two men had their initial appearance in U.S. District Court on Monday on charges of smuggling goods from the United States and requested a public defender. A detention hearing is scheduled for October 31.
Meantime, in El Paso, special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) received a tip from a local gun dealer regarding a suspicious purchase. It involved the delivery of a .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle and $4,000 in .50-caliber ammunition purchased online.
ATF agents engaged the buyer as he arrived at the dealership to pick up the rifle and ammo. Court records show he agreed to be interviewed and stated a Mexican man named Mario Iturbe Gallardo provided money for the purchase and would be picking up the merchandise at the buyer’s apartment.
ATF agents waited for Iturbide to come and questioned him and another man from Mexico who accompanied him. Records show Iturbe pointed to his companion as the one who put up the money and told him to hire the buyer.
Iturbe further stated that the companion, Eduardo Zatarain Ramirez, planned to disassemble the rifle, file off the serial number and hide the weapon on the floor of a vehicle back to Mexico, where they live.
Court records show Zatarain declined to talk to agents. Both men were in possession of B1/B2 U.S. visitor visas.
A federal grand jury in El Paso last week indicted the two on charges of trafficking in in firearms and unlawfully purchasing a firearm on behalf of another person (straw purchase).
Gun runners have been smuggling guns into Mexico for 200 years.
ReplyDelete