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发帖数: 54598 | 1 主要由在美国没有犯罪记录的墨西哥女人购买
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-08-23-gun-smugg
Gun traffickers recruiting women as buyers
Updated 8/23/2009 11:28 PM | Comment | Recommend E-mail | Print |
Enlarge By Thomas B. Shea for USA TODAY
Special Agent J. Dewey Webb, in charge of the Houston ATF office, displays a
gun seized by agents. He says gun traffickers are using a more diverse
group of buyers to meet a growing demand in Mexico.
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By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
HOUSTON — Ann Zarate may be one of the most unlikely players to be swept up
in Mexico's unrelenting drug war.
The 24-year-old native of Texas' Rio Grande Valley is described by her
attorney Jodi Goodwin as a "quiet, super sweet" woman who ultimately could
not resist the promise of easy money for precious little work.
Zarate was sentenced earlier this year to 10 months in federal prison as a
buyer in a gun-trafficking ring that delivered 77 weapons to Mexico's
warring drug cartels. She also represents one in a steady stream of women —
grandmothers, single moms and expectant mothers — who cartels are
regularly recruiting to keep weapons flowing from the U.S. to support their
violent operations in Mexico.
Federal law enforcement officials don't track the numbers of women involved
in gun-trafficking cases. But as the demand for weapons in Mexico has
escalated in the past two years, trafficking rings have been increasingly
recruiting women with clean criminal records to buy weapons for them, said J
. Dewey Webb, chief of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives office in Houston.
Often paid as little as $100
At least a dozen women in the past two years have surfaced in federal gun-
trafficking cases as suspects or cooperating witnesses in Houston and the
South Texas region, the nation's busiest gun-trafficking corridor to Mexico,
according to court records, federal law enforcement officials and defense
attorneys.
Webb said the women are joining the armies of buyers eager to risk harsh
criminal sanctions in the U.S. — and possible retaliation by the cartels if
they fail — for a relatively small share in the lucrative arms trade.
Because convicted felons cannot legally buy weapons, women with no criminal
history are seen as valuable "straw buyers" who transfer their purchases to
smugglers through relatives, boyfriends and acquaintances. The women often
are being paid as little as $100 per trip to buy high-powered weapons from
legitimate U.S. gun dealers, from Houston to the Rio Grande Valley.
"These buyers have as much blood on their hands as the people in Mexico who
pull the trigger," Webb said. "The bottom line is that even grandmothers
know what they are doing is illegal."
Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said because of the stepped-up law
enforcement effort to block the flow of guns to Mexico in the past year,
women are being increasingly targeted for recruitment to divert attention
away from high-profile suspects in the trafficking operations.
"When a woman walks into a gun store and says she's looking for a weapon for
her own protection, there aren't going to be a lot of questions," the chief
said.
Some of the largest and most deadly gun smuggling operations in the country
have involved women. The development highlights the key role straw buyers
are playing to keep what Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., once characterized as the
"Iron River" of guns flowing from the U.S. to Mexico.
Deputy Attorney General David Ogden has described the role of straw
purchasers as the spark which has led to "horrific acts of violence."
"It's a nationwide problem," Ogden said, "that requires a nationwide
commitment."
In a case outlined in court documents unsealed here last year, an
organization of 23 buyers, including at least one woman, was linked to
purchases of 339 guns during a 15-month, $340,000 buying spree across the
region.
Two of the main figures in the ring, Juan Pablo Gutierrez, 24, and John
Phillip Hernandez, 26, were sentenced earlier this year to a combined 11
years in federal prison.
But the weapons they and others helped funnel to Mexico — an arsenal of
assault rifles and high-powered handguns —are still being recovered at
crime scenes throughout areas of Mexico.
Nearly three years after the trafficking operation began, some of the same
weapons are being linked to a torrent of violence that has claimed more than
11,000 lives since 2006, according to federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF) records.
Weapons traced back to U.S.
Of the 71 weapons recovered in Mexico and traced to the Houston-based
trafficking organization so far, 48 have been linked to killings, according
to an analysis of firearms by the ATF.
The dead include 17 Mexican law enforcement officials and 31 members of
rival drug-trafficking organizations, the main combatants in the ongoing
drug war being waged at the border.
Almost every week, another gun in Mexico is traced to the Gutierrez-
Hernandez operation, according to ATF records.
Three months ago, the Justice Department deployed 100 additional
investigators in an attempt to make some headway in the battle to halt the
volume of weapons streaming south.
The Gutierrez-Hernandez operation, federal investigators said, stands as one
of the most revealing examples yet of the cartels' long reach into U.S.
cities for help in satisfying the steady demand for arms.
ATF Assistant Director Larry Ford said the ring's long roster of so-called "
straw buyers" is now emblematic of other similar gun smuggling operations.
Ford said gun rings now often recruit large numbers of buyers, including
students and women, in part to divert law enforcement attention that might
otherwise be drawn to smaller numbers of buyers making multiple purchases.
"If you spread it out, you don't make it so obvious," Ford said. |
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