This whole sordid affair just keeps getting worse. Now it turns out that the ATF's targets in Fast & Furious were already informants working for the FBI, or at least that's what the latest story is. One federal agency pressures dealers to make suspiscious sales, another federal agency has paid informants on the buyer's end of those sales, yet we're supposed to believe it was all a failure of communication between 2 agencies. More and more this operation is coming to the light of day for what it really was, a coordinated effort by the government to create a false crisis to justify further gun control.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/...s-fbi-informers.htmlFast and Furious: Gun-sting targets were FBI informers
ATF's cartel suspects worked for other agency
22 comments by Dennis Wagner - Feb. 9, 2012 11:07 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
Mexican cartel suspects targeted in the troubled gun-trafficking probe known as Operation Fast and Furious were actually working as FBI informants at the time, according to a congressional memo that describes the case's mission as a "failure."
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has acknowledged that guns were allowed into the hands of Mexican criminals for more than a year in the hope of catching "big fish."
The memorandum from staffers with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform says the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration were investigating a drug-trafficking organization and had identified cartel associates a year before the ATF even learned who they were. At some point before the ATF's Fast and Furious investigation progressed -- congressional investigators don't know when -- the cartel members became FBI informants.
"These were the 'big fish,' " says the memo, written on behalf of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. "DEA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had jointly opened a separate investigation targeting these two cartel associates. ... Yet, ATF spent the next year engaging in the reckless tactics of Fast and Furious in attempting to identify them."
According to Issa and Grassley, the cartel suspects, whose names were not released, were regarded by FBI as "national-security assets." One pleaded guilty to a minor offense. The other was not charged. "Both became FBI informants and are now considered unindictable," the memo says. "This means that the entire goal of Fast and Furious -- to target these two individuals and bring them to justice -- was a failure."
Representatives with the Justice Department and its subagencies declined to comment.
In a statement e-mailed to The Republic, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the Oversight committee, disputed GOP conclusions and stressed that Issa "has repeatedly made unsubstantiated allegations against law- enforcement agencies" while investigating Fast and Furious. Cummings agreed that the ATF was hampered by communication breakdowns, but he rejected implications that other agencies had similar failures.
Fast and Furious was launched by the ATF in November 2009. At the same time, the memo says, FBI and DEA agents who were conducting a narcotics investigation identified a suspected ringleader of the gun-trafficking organization, Manuel Celis-Acosta. According to federal records, DEA supervisors shared their discovery with ATF agents, but the suspect was not arrested until a year later, when guns from Fast and Furious were linked to the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
At that point, the memo says, Celis-Acosta gave names of his Sinaloa cartel associates to ATF agents, who learned that they already were working for the FBI. The associates are not identified in the congressional memo.
The overlap reflects the spiderweb nature of trafficking organizations in Arizona and the labyrinth of law-enforcement agencies pursuing them.
Celis-Acosta was indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2011 with 19 other suspects on charges related to firearms and marijuana trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering. He is awaiting trial in U.S. District Court.
According to federal prosecutors, Celis-Acosta's gun-trafficking business became involved with a man named Luis Hernandez-Flores, allegedly part of a separate marijuana-smuggling organization in the Valley. The DEA, working in a task force with Glendale and Phoenix police, set up wiretap surveillance to gather evidence against Hernandez- Flores and others.
In federal filings, prosecutors say Celis-Acosta identified Hernandez- Flores as an illegal-firearms broker for the Mexican cartel figures.
In March 2010, Hernandez-Flores and more than 40 other suspects were indicted by a state grand jury. Charges were information thrown out in June 2011, according to Maricopa County Superior Court records, because a Glendale detective supplied false for a wiretap affidavit.
A judge ruled that the detective, Laura Beeler, was "not a reliable witness." Beeler was investigated for alleged perjury but not charged. Prosecutors and Beeler's attorney said the problem arose from her attempts to shield a confidential informant.
The Republican memo does not address previous ATF assertions that the Phoenix-based investigation was aimed at drug lords south of the border.
For example, on Feb. 3, Mexican federal police reportedly seized several weapons from Fast and Furious during the arrest of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, under U.S. indictment and suspected of being a top enforcer for Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin "Chapo" Guzaman. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that 40 other high-powered weapons from the case were found at Marrufo's unoccupied home in Juarez.
The Republican staff analysis purportedly is based on investigative records and interviews with personnel at federal law-enforcement agencies. Investigative documents and transcripts were not made available.
Issa is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is leading a congressional probe of Fast and Furious. Grassley is ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In their memo to GOP colleagues, they conclude that Fast and Furious was not only flawed strategically, but undermined by law-enforcement negligence, communication breakdowns and "serious management failures."
