22-07-2011, 04:41 AM
Operation Fast and Furious: The Straw Buyers
By William La Jeunesse & Laura Prabucki
Published July 20, 2011
| FoxNews.com
Video at link
When the Operation Fast and Furious indictment was announced back in January, it was depicted as a big bust. Twenty suspects were charged with numerous counts of conspiracy, money laundering, gun running and drug trafficking. The defendants faced 5 to 20 years on a single count.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives(ATF) along with the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix claimed to have dismantled a major weapons trafficking organization from top to bottom- from the end user of the weapons in Mexico to the money men, those who smuggled and transported the weapons from the U.S. into Mexico, and the buyers on our side of the border.
Yet after thousands of man hours and millions of dollars spent, only one of the 20 suspects remains behind bars. Most were released within 24 hours of their arrest. In the end, all prosecutors got was one middle man and a handful of straw buyers.
Fox News paid a visit to some of the straw buyers in the Phoenix Metro area last week. What we found were young men, many living with their parents, who were apparently just looking to make some quick money.
"A straw buyer is usually a kid who is 18-25, who needs a couple hundred extra bucks and knows somebody who knows somebody that has a way to make a couple extra bucks," said Adrian Fontes, an attorney for the accused ringleader of this Operation. His client, Manuel Celis- Acosta is the only one still in jail.
"The government wants a dramatic indictment, they want the conspiracy to sound like it's run out by highly sophisticated individuals who are involved with a particularly nefarious organization when the reality is it's just a bunch of kids," said Fontes.
Those "kids" purchased more than 1800 guns from stores in and around Phoenix. The straw buyers reportedly received about $100 per transaction. The gun stores say they were assured by the ATF and U.S. attorneys that the weapons would be tracked. Instead, agents say the weapons were allowed to "walk", they were not followed and many ended up in Mexico. Along with crime scenes south of the border, two were also found at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Former U.S. Attorney Melvin McDonald says the defendants' release suggests that Operation Fast and Furious is not only a scandal, it was a failure.
" It's pretty scary," says McDonald. " You'd think a lot of people probably would not get out , they'd be detained because of the risk."
The parents of some of the straw buyers claim their sons just got caught up with the wrong crowd.
The mother of 18-year old Dejan Hercegovac, who bought more than 30 guns, said, "He didn't know anything.. he was just a kid."
The father of Erick Avila- Davila, a 25-year old who bought 12 guns, said he didn't know what his son was up to and only found out when he was arrested.
" When I ask him what he did, he just told me 'I'm sorry dad'."
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/20/ope...z1SnkXS2NE
****
Investigators Say They've Been Monitoring Former OBN Agent for Awhile
Posted: Aug 11, 2010 8:24 PM
Updated: Aug 12, 2010 9:52 PM
Featured Video
OBN Agent's Alleged Double Life Shocked Those Who Knew Him
OBN Agent's Arrest Could Be Tip of Iceberg in Gun Smuggling Scheme
ATF investigators said they have been monitoring former OBN agent Francisco Javier Reyes, 29, since the spring for his alleged involvement in a firearms smuggling scheme.
Court records indicated Kyle Wooten, 28, was one of the people Reyes would allegedly pay to buy guns that would eventually be smuggled into Mexico. Wooten has since died.
Reyes' patrol car now sits parked at the agency, while he is out of jail on $25,000 bond and under house arrest.
By Adrianna Iwasinski and Rusty Surette, NEWS 9
OKLAHOMA CITY -- According to court documents, agents have been tracking a number of people, including an Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics agent, involved in a secret scheme of smuggling firearms into Mexico.
Right now former OBN agent 29-year-old Francisco Javier Reyes is the only one facing federal charges, but recently unsealed court documents showed a number of people were involved.
Reyes busted more than his fair share of people for smuggling drugs during his three years on the force, but now he stands accused of smuggling guns to Mexico.
Court documents revealed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents recovered dozens of assault rifles heading to Laredo, Texas and traced several of them back to Oklahoma, and ultimately to Reyes.
It's unclear how long Reyes had been living a double life, but the ATF had been tracking him and his whereabouts since the spring of this year.
According to a federal affidavit, Reyes would often use his blue Chevy Tahoe to transport the firearms, many of which were AK-47s.
Reyes also allegedly recruited several friends in the Stillwater area to buy the firearms for him. Court records stated Reyes contacted a few of them at a Stillwater hookah lounge, which he co-owned.
One of them was 28-year-old Kyle Wooten, who did electrical work at the hookah lounge. Wooten has since died and his wife and children are reportedly in hiding in fear of his connection to the gun smuggling scheme.
Agents reported Reyes would give Wooten and others wads of cash to make the purchases at several gun shows and gun shops around town and the state and would then pay them up to $100 per firearm. One of those gun stores Wooten and Reyes visited was H & H Gun Range in Oklahoma City. The owner confirmed the two bought guns at his store.
However, ATF agents were onto the scheme early on and started doing mobile surveillance on Reyes back in June. Many of the guns Reyes and his friends bought had electronic tracking devices on them, allowing ATF agents to monitor their every move.
In June agents made a bust at the Texas-Mexico border where they recovered dozens of assault rifles with obliterated serial numbers. Agents were able to trace one of the rifles back to Reyes.
There is also a money trail. Court records showed Reyes was pulled over for speeding in Denton, Texas in July. Deputies found a black briefcase with two checks inside, one for $27,000 and one for $6,000. There was also a notebook with an itemized list of guns totaling more than $40,000.
Reyes has since resigned his position with the Bureau of Narcotics and the agency has launched its own investigation.
Those who knew Reyes said it is hard to believe he is on the other side of the law.
The owner of Club Albee in Bricktown, DJ Saad, said he often saw Reyes in his club.
"Usually him and his friend would come in here and sit down and smoke hookah. Just quiet, very nice and very polite people," Saad said.
Saad said Reyes was a frequent customer and would often talk about the hookah bar, but what Reyes didn't talk about was his work as a drug agent and his secret double life.
"After watching the news story, I still don't believe it. I'm in shock," Saad said.
And that's the same reaction from everyone else who said they knew Reyes. They said the former OSU student was good at his job, especially the work he did for the past three years at the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, but now his patrol vehicle sits parked at the agency instead of at his downtown apartment where the 29-year-old is out on a $25,000 bond and under house arrest.
Reyes said he had no comment at this time.
More:
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Agent Arrested for Alleged Firearms Sales to Mexican Cartels
http://www.news9.com/story/12966103/inve...ected=true
****
ATF sought to downplay guns scandal, emails show
As Sen. Charles Grassley and congressional investigators looked into the Fast and Furious operation and the killing of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, ATF officials took steps to throw them off the trail.
Richard A. Serrano
Washington Bureau
July 21, 2011, 3:41 p.m.
Reporting from Washington Two days after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry was killed in December, the top ATF supervisors in Phoenix said in internal emails that weapons found at the scene in Arizona came from a failed agency sting operation.
But nearly two months later, when U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) inquired about the origin of the guns, senior officials in Washington with the Justice Department and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were evasive.
Grassley asked whether the guns were "used" in the killing. According to agency emails obtained by the Tribune/Times Washington bureau, the Justice Department response to Grassley said that "these allegations are not true." The response made no acknowledgement that the guns were even there.
DOCUMENTS: Read the emails (see link below)
ATF officials, speaking not for attribution because the probe is ongoing, said they saw a distinction between the guns being found at the scene and "used" in the killing. They said the FBI had determined that neither of the two AK-47 semiautomatics was the one that killed the agent.
The parsing of the response to Grassley fit a pattern of ATF and Justice Department officials seeking to minimize the depth of the problems with the sting operation run by the ATF's Phoenix field office.
The goal of the sting operation, dubbed Fast and Furious, was to observe but not prevent a series of illegal gun purchases in the hopes that agents could follow the guns and learn about smuggling routes into Mexico. The program, which began in November 2009, largely failed. ATF lost track of many of the weapons. Along with the two guns found at the Terry shooting, nearly 200 more were found at crime scenes in Mexico.
After the death of Terry and Grassley's inquiries, the agency sought to close ranks. In an email on Feb. 3, ATF supervisors were told "you are in no way obligated to respond to congressional contacts or requests for information.... You are not authorized to disclose non-public information about law enforcement matters outside of ATF or the Department of Justice to anyone, including congressional staff."
In addition, in a series of emails to William J. Hoover, the ATF's acting deputy director, bureau officials discussed what steps to take to throw Grassley and congressional investigators off the trail.
Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, are investigating who in Washington approved the program and why it was not shut down months before ATF ultimately halted it.
Grassley started asking questions in late January, when he received tips that two of the weapons found near Terry's body were Fast and Furious guns. He sent two letters to the ATF, saying "this raises a host of serious questions that the ATF needs to address immediately." He added that, if they were indeed Fast and Furious guns, then "the ATF may have become careless, if not negligent, in implementing" the program.
According to the internal emails, two days after Terry's killing on Dec. 14 the top two ATF field supervisors in Phoenix were openly discussing that Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene. George T. Gillett Jr., then the acting special agent in charge, sent his boss, William D. Newell, the agent in charge, a "narrative of incident/activity" about the death.
It said Jaime Avila bought three AK-47s a year earlier from a Phoenix-area store and two "were recovered in the area" of Terry's killing. "In summary," the email said, "Avila admitted to ATF agents that he straw purchased these firearms for an unidentified Hispanic male."
After Grassley's inquiries, Hoover received an internal email alerting him that the bureau was "receiving reports that Grassley's staff is contacting current and former ATF field agents to inquire about the open investigation into the Brian Terry murder" and Fast and Furious. According to one email, ATF officials believed that Grassley was growing more suspicious because "ATF is not answering" his concerns.
They seemed further alarmed when they learned a mid-level ATF supervisor "called to the carpet" an employee who had spoken with Grassley's staff. The employee "was ordered to write a memorandum disclosing everything" he told the senator's staff. The email said Grassley's office had expressed concern that the ATF supervisor may have violated federal laws intended to protect whistle-blowers.
As the agency continued to work on a written response to Grassley, an email to Hoover proposed a "watered-down" account of what was found at the site of the Terry killing. As an aside, the email added that Grassley was "at best imposing an unobtainable standard on ATF."
ATF finally sent Grassley a two-page response Feb. 4, under the signature of Assistant Atty. Gen. Ronald Weich. It largely defended the Fast and Furious program and devoted one paragraph to the Terry killing: The agency could not comment about "pending criminal investigations."
According to one email, it was sent with the approval of acting ATF Director Kenneth E. Melson. "He's good to go with it," it said.
Hoover praised the response. "Nice touch partner," the No. 2 man at ATF said about a colleague's work on the letter.
Indeed, several senior ATF and Justice Department officials dispatched emails congratulating one another. "You're a natural leader," one told Hoover. "The men and women are lucky you've stayed the course."
Whether Grassley and his staff would be satisfied with their response, they were left to wonder. As one official put it, "Whether or not they buy in, you are the man for supporting us like that."
richard.serrano@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-0722-f...2598.story
****
ATF e-mails in agent's shooting death
http://documents.latimes.com/atf-emails-agent-shooting/
By William La Jeunesse & Laura Prabucki
Published July 20, 2011
| FoxNews.com
Video at link
When the Operation Fast and Furious indictment was announced back in January, it was depicted as a big bust. Twenty suspects were charged with numerous counts of conspiracy, money laundering, gun running and drug trafficking. The defendants faced 5 to 20 years on a single count.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives(ATF) along with the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix claimed to have dismantled a major weapons trafficking organization from top to bottom- from the end user of the weapons in Mexico to the money men, those who smuggled and transported the weapons from the U.S. into Mexico, and the buyers on our side of the border.
Yet after thousands of man hours and millions of dollars spent, only one of the 20 suspects remains behind bars. Most were released within 24 hours of their arrest. In the end, all prosecutors got was one middle man and a handful of straw buyers.
Fox News paid a visit to some of the straw buyers in the Phoenix Metro area last week. What we found were young men, many living with their parents, who were apparently just looking to make some quick money.
"A straw buyer is usually a kid who is 18-25, who needs a couple hundred extra bucks and knows somebody who knows somebody that has a way to make a couple extra bucks," said Adrian Fontes, an attorney for the accused ringleader of this Operation. His client, Manuel Celis- Acosta is the only one still in jail.
"The government wants a dramatic indictment, they want the conspiracy to sound like it's run out by highly sophisticated individuals who are involved with a particularly nefarious organization when the reality is it's just a bunch of kids," said Fontes.
Those "kids" purchased more than 1800 guns from stores in and around Phoenix. The straw buyers reportedly received about $100 per transaction. The gun stores say they were assured by the ATF and U.S. attorneys that the weapons would be tracked. Instead, agents say the weapons were allowed to "walk", they were not followed and many ended up in Mexico. Along with crime scenes south of the border, two were also found at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Former U.S. Attorney Melvin McDonald says the defendants' release suggests that Operation Fast and Furious is not only a scandal, it was a failure.
" It's pretty scary," says McDonald. " You'd think a lot of people probably would not get out , they'd be detained because of the risk."
The parents of some of the straw buyers claim their sons just got caught up with the wrong crowd.
The mother of 18-year old Dejan Hercegovac, who bought more than 30 guns, said, "He didn't know anything.. he was just a kid."
The father of Erick Avila- Davila, a 25-year old who bought 12 guns, said he didn't know what his son was up to and only found out when he was arrested.
" When I ask him what he did, he just told me 'I'm sorry dad'."
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/20/ope...z1SnkXS2NE
****
Investigators Say They've Been Monitoring Former OBN Agent for Awhile
Posted: Aug 11, 2010 8:24 PM
Updated: Aug 12, 2010 9:52 PM
Featured Video
OBN Agent's Alleged Double Life Shocked Those Who Knew Him
OBN Agent's Arrest Could Be Tip of Iceberg in Gun Smuggling Scheme
ATF investigators said they have been monitoring former OBN agent Francisco Javier Reyes, 29, since the spring for his alleged involvement in a firearms smuggling scheme.
Court records indicated Kyle Wooten, 28, was one of the people Reyes would allegedly pay to buy guns that would eventually be smuggled into Mexico. Wooten has since died.
Reyes' patrol car now sits parked at the agency, while he is out of jail on $25,000 bond and under house arrest.
By Adrianna Iwasinski and Rusty Surette, NEWS 9
OKLAHOMA CITY -- According to court documents, agents have been tracking a number of people, including an Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics agent, involved in a secret scheme of smuggling firearms into Mexico.
Right now former OBN agent 29-year-old Francisco Javier Reyes is the only one facing federal charges, but recently unsealed court documents showed a number of people were involved.
Reyes busted more than his fair share of people for smuggling drugs during his three years on the force, but now he stands accused of smuggling guns to Mexico.
Court documents revealed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents recovered dozens of assault rifles heading to Laredo, Texas and traced several of them back to Oklahoma, and ultimately to Reyes.
It's unclear how long Reyes had been living a double life, but the ATF had been tracking him and his whereabouts since the spring of this year.
According to a federal affidavit, Reyes would often use his blue Chevy Tahoe to transport the firearms, many of which were AK-47s.
Reyes also allegedly recruited several friends in the Stillwater area to buy the firearms for him. Court records stated Reyes contacted a few of them at a Stillwater hookah lounge, which he co-owned.
One of them was 28-year-old Kyle Wooten, who did electrical work at the hookah lounge. Wooten has since died and his wife and children are reportedly in hiding in fear of his connection to the gun smuggling scheme.
Agents reported Reyes would give Wooten and others wads of cash to make the purchases at several gun shows and gun shops around town and the state and would then pay them up to $100 per firearm. One of those gun stores Wooten and Reyes visited was H & H Gun Range in Oklahoma City. The owner confirmed the two bought guns at his store.
However, ATF agents were onto the scheme early on and started doing mobile surveillance on Reyes back in June. Many of the guns Reyes and his friends bought had electronic tracking devices on them, allowing ATF agents to monitor their every move.
In June agents made a bust at the Texas-Mexico border where they recovered dozens of assault rifles with obliterated serial numbers. Agents were able to trace one of the rifles back to Reyes.
There is also a money trail. Court records showed Reyes was pulled over for speeding in Denton, Texas in July. Deputies found a black briefcase with two checks inside, one for $27,000 and one for $6,000. There was also a notebook with an itemized list of guns totaling more than $40,000.
Reyes has since resigned his position with the Bureau of Narcotics and the agency has launched its own investigation.
Those who knew Reyes said it is hard to believe he is on the other side of the law.
The owner of Club Albee in Bricktown, DJ Saad, said he often saw Reyes in his club.
"Usually him and his friend would come in here and sit down and smoke hookah. Just quiet, very nice and very polite people," Saad said.
Saad said Reyes was a frequent customer and would often talk about the hookah bar, but what Reyes didn't talk about was his work as a drug agent and his secret double life.
"After watching the news story, I still don't believe it. I'm in shock," Saad said.
And that's the same reaction from everyone else who said they knew Reyes. They said the former OSU student was good at his job, especially the work he did for the past three years at the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, but now his patrol vehicle sits parked at the agency instead of at his downtown apartment where the 29-year-old is out on a $25,000 bond and under house arrest.
Reyes said he had no comment at this time.
More:
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Agent Arrested for Alleged Firearms Sales to Mexican Cartels
http://www.news9.com/story/12966103/inve...ected=true
****
ATF sought to downplay guns scandal, emails show
As Sen. Charles Grassley and congressional investigators looked into the Fast and Furious operation and the killing of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, ATF officials took steps to throw them off the trail.
Richard A. Serrano
Washington Bureau
July 21, 2011, 3:41 p.m.
Reporting from Washington Two days after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry was killed in December, the top ATF supervisors in Phoenix said in internal emails that weapons found at the scene in Arizona came from a failed agency sting operation.
But nearly two months later, when U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) inquired about the origin of the guns, senior officials in Washington with the Justice Department and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were evasive.
Grassley asked whether the guns were "used" in the killing. According to agency emails obtained by the Tribune/Times Washington bureau, the Justice Department response to Grassley said that "these allegations are not true." The response made no acknowledgement that the guns were even there.
DOCUMENTS: Read the emails (see link below)
ATF officials, speaking not for attribution because the probe is ongoing, said they saw a distinction between the guns being found at the scene and "used" in the killing. They said the FBI had determined that neither of the two AK-47 semiautomatics was the one that killed the agent.
The parsing of the response to Grassley fit a pattern of ATF and Justice Department officials seeking to minimize the depth of the problems with the sting operation run by the ATF's Phoenix field office.
The goal of the sting operation, dubbed Fast and Furious, was to observe but not prevent a series of illegal gun purchases in the hopes that agents could follow the guns and learn about smuggling routes into Mexico. The program, which began in November 2009, largely failed. ATF lost track of many of the weapons. Along with the two guns found at the Terry shooting, nearly 200 more were found at crime scenes in Mexico.
After the death of Terry and Grassley's inquiries, the agency sought to close ranks. In an email on Feb. 3, ATF supervisors were told "you are in no way obligated to respond to congressional contacts or requests for information.... You are not authorized to disclose non-public information about law enforcement matters outside of ATF or the Department of Justice to anyone, including congressional staff."
In addition, in a series of emails to William J. Hoover, the ATF's acting deputy director, bureau officials discussed what steps to take to throw Grassley and congressional investigators off the trail.
Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, are investigating who in Washington approved the program and why it was not shut down months before ATF ultimately halted it.
Grassley started asking questions in late January, when he received tips that two of the weapons found near Terry's body were Fast and Furious guns. He sent two letters to the ATF, saying "this raises a host of serious questions that the ATF needs to address immediately." He added that, if they were indeed Fast and Furious guns, then "the ATF may have become careless, if not negligent, in implementing" the program.
According to the internal emails, two days after Terry's killing on Dec. 14 the top two ATF field supervisors in Phoenix were openly discussing that Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene. George T. Gillett Jr., then the acting special agent in charge, sent his boss, William D. Newell, the agent in charge, a "narrative of incident/activity" about the death.
It said Jaime Avila bought three AK-47s a year earlier from a Phoenix-area store and two "were recovered in the area" of Terry's killing. "In summary," the email said, "Avila admitted to ATF agents that he straw purchased these firearms for an unidentified Hispanic male."
After Grassley's inquiries, Hoover received an internal email alerting him that the bureau was "receiving reports that Grassley's staff is contacting current and former ATF field agents to inquire about the open investigation into the Brian Terry murder" and Fast and Furious. According to one email, ATF officials believed that Grassley was growing more suspicious because "ATF is not answering" his concerns.
They seemed further alarmed when they learned a mid-level ATF supervisor "called to the carpet" an employee who had spoken with Grassley's staff. The employee "was ordered to write a memorandum disclosing everything" he told the senator's staff. The email said Grassley's office had expressed concern that the ATF supervisor may have violated federal laws intended to protect whistle-blowers.
As the agency continued to work on a written response to Grassley, an email to Hoover proposed a "watered-down" account of what was found at the site of the Terry killing. As an aside, the email added that Grassley was "at best imposing an unobtainable standard on ATF."
ATF finally sent Grassley a two-page response Feb. 4, under the signature of Assistant Atty. Gen. Ronald Weich. It largely defended the Fast and Furious program and devoted one paragraph to the Terry killing: The agency could not comment about "pending criminal investigations."
According to one email, it was sent with the approval of acting ATF Director Kenneth E. Melson. "He's good to go with it," it said.
Hoover praised the response. "Nice touch partner," the No. 2 man at ATF said about a colleague's work on the letter.
Indeed, several senior ATF and Justice Department officials dispatched emails congratulating one another. "You're a natural leader," one told Hoover. "The men and women are lucky you've stayed the course."
Whether Grassley and his staff would be satisfied with their response, they were left to wonder. As one official put it, "Whether or not they buy in, you are the man for supporting us like that."
richard.serrano@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-0722-f...2598.story
****
ATF e-mails in agent's shooting death
http://documents.latimes.com/atf-emails-agent-shooting/
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"