Operation Fast & Furious is now
linked to a local gun smuggling operation in the border town of
Columbus, New Mexico.
Federal agents knew in April 2010
that the leader of the operation, town trustee Blas “Woody” Gutierrez, was
found with weapons purchased by “straw man” Jaime Avila, Jr. Avila was a member
of a group in Arizona that was the target of Fast & Furious.
Border agents stopped Gutierrez and
Miguel Carillo on January 14, 2010 and found ten semiautomatic weapons. They
ran the serial numbers in one database and nothing suspicious came up. With no
active arrest warrants, the agents allowed the men to leave with the guns.
Three months later, though, ATF agents in New Mexico wrote that three of those
weapons were purchased by Avila on January 9. Three other weapons were
connected to Uriel Patino, another Fast & Furious suspect.
The report specifically refers to
Fast & Furious by number.
Senator Charles Grassley asked Alan
Bersin, commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, about the traffic
stop. Bersin would not hand over any information.
Fast & Furious was an ATF gun
walking operation that allowed over 2,000 guns to walk into the hands of
Mexican drug cartels. They are connected to the deaths of Border Patrol Agent
Brian Terry and over 300 Mexican citizens.
These are the only weapons in this
case connected to Fast & Furious. Gutierrez decided to buy himself and pay
others to buy them for him from a New Mexico dealer. He has plead guilty to gun
smuggling but has not been sentenced. Source
RELATED:
§ ‘Fast
and Furious’ Guns Turned Up in El Paso 09/29/2011
§ Village
of Columbus gun-smugglers sentenced 10/09/2012
§ ‘Fast
and Furious’ Trial Now Set for Jan. 04/12/2012
§ ‘Reckoning
Day’ For 4 Columbus Gun Smugglers 10/10/2012
§ Fed
Wiretap Leak Linked to Gun Smugglers 11/26/2012
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