Politics

Washington –  A lack of coordination between U.S. law-enforcement agencies and insufficiently strict federal laws contribute to the flow of weapons to Mexico, as exemplified by the botched sting operation "Fast and Furious," a newly released report says.

Fast and Furious, which saw members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allow close to 2,000 weapons to be smuggled from Arizona to Mexico over 15 months, is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and will be the subject of congressional hearings next month.

Now, a report from the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, which uncovered Fast and Furious early this month in a joint investigation with CBS News, says an incident 14 months ago in New Mexico reveals "major gaps" in the U.S. fight against Mexican gun and drug cartels.

"America's frontline agencies aren't always coordinated fully and often feel powerless to arrest suspected gun runners in the absence of tougher federal laws," the CPI says.

As a result, according to the CPI, weapons from the ATF's Fast and Furious sting in Arizona "unwittingly ended up in the possession of a trafficking ring in a neighboring state while other guns crossed the border and at least one showed up at a murder scene in Mexico."

"More than a lack of resources, the fundamental problem is the lack of communication between U.S. federal agencies and between the U.S. and Mexican governments. You would think there'd be communication and cooperation, but high-level officials were not aware that these weapons had crossed into Mexico," Ricardo Sandoval Palos, one of the authors of the CPI report, told Efe.

"Taking guns into Mexico is illegal and the fact it happened without the explicit permission and cooperation of the Mexican government is a big problem," he added.

The report cited an incident on Jan. 14, 2010, in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents arrested two men riding in a car through the border-crossing town of Columbus, New Mexico.

Inside the car, the agents found eight weapons, including AK-47 assault rifles, Ruger .45-caliber handguns and "cop-killer" pistols made to fire armor-piercing bullets.

The CBP agents ran the guns' serial numbers through a nationwide database and confirmed that none of them were flagged as stolen or suspect. They then let the men go just a few miles from the border with Mexico, where drug-related mayhem has claimed 35,000 lives over the last four years.

The CBP agents were unaware that six of the weapons had been purchased by alleged straw buyers as part of an ATF operation aimed at busting a Mexican gun-smuggling ring.

They did not know this information because ATF had not flagged the weapons in a law-enforcement database and it took five months for CBP to alert its sister law-enforcement agency about what had happened in Columbus, "delays that would prove fateful for both agencies," the report said.

The two men were Blas Gutierrez and Miguel Carrillo, who were indicted earlier this month, along with Columbus' mayor and police chief, on charges of smuggling guns into Mexico.

One of the Ruger handguns turned up on Feb. 8 at a murder scene in Puerto Palomas, Mexico, just across the border from Columbus.

Law-enforcement agents and prosecutors have sought to pressure Congress into passing a "specific law banning gun trafficking" but they "have repeatedly watched as courts threw out cases against straw buyers who made purchases that were technically legal," the CPI said.

"The ATF not only must deal with criminals but also Second Amendment restrictions (that guarantee the right to bear arms) ... and aggressive lobbying by the National Rifle Association," Sandoval said.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) told the Center for Public Integrity that he will continue to demand answers from the CBP about the Columbus incident and from the Obama administration concerning its policy for halting the southward flow of weapons.