The I-Team: Mexican drug cartels look to North Texas to smuggle military-grade guns
DALLAS (CBSNewsTexas.com) — Guns purchased in Texas are ending up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels at an alarming volume.
According to a recent government report, an estimated 200,000 firearms are smuggled into Mexico each year. Of those recovered and traced, nearly half come from Texas.
As fentanyl deaths rise across the state, Governor Greg Abbott has placed much of the blame on Mexican drug cartels.
On Capitol Hill, Texas politicians have called for the U.S. to declare war on the cartels.
But as the drugs head north, the weapons that allow the cartels to keep their power are headed in the opposite direction.
"It's a huge problem for both sides," said ATF special agent in charge Jeffery Boshek. "I would say it's the ATF's and the Dallas field division's number one priority."
In July 2022, according to court records, federal agents discovered a massive gun smuggling operation with ties to the Mexican cartel inside a home in southwest Arlington.
At the home, inside a closet, ATF agents found 150 empty gun boxes. Jose Carlos Rivas-Chairez, a Mexican citizen who lived at the home, paid more than a half-dozen U.S. residents to buy guns for him.
Rivas-Chairez, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison, admitted he disabled the guns, wrapped them in plastic, hid them in car tires, and then smuggled them to Mexico, according to court records.
"I think the majority of DFW residents don't realize that this can be going on in their neighborhood," Boshek said.
The ATF special agent in charge said when federal law enforcement ramped up gun trafficking efforts in border cities, the cartels started looking north to the DFW area for straw buyers. Straw buyers are people who purchase guns on behalf of someone else.
In their efforts to stop this illegal gun trafficking, federal agents often monitor social media to identify potential straw buyers. That's how undercover ATF agents caught Daniel Loyola Jr., 24, of Fort Worth.
According to federal court records, Loyola, who was sentenced earlier this year to 10 years in prison, admitted to buying a machine gun along with .50-caliber Barrett rifles for the cartel. These high-powered rifles are the gun of choice for the cartels.
For years, if caught, straw buyers faced soft penalties but that changed in June of 2022, when President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. This made straw purchasing a federal crime with stiff penalties.
In the first year of the new law, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 100 people had been charged with illegal firearm trafficking and straw purchasing.
"It has been a game changer for ATF," Boshek said. "It has really put some teeth into laws that had no teeth before."
The federal government also launched a new initiative last year, called Operation Southbound, with the goal of disrupting gun trafficking to Mexico.
The operation resulted in the seizure of nearly 2,000 firearms from October 2022 to March 2023—a nearly 65% increase compared to the same period the year prior, according to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
But that still pales in comparison the number of firearms flowing into Mexico. According to the Mexican government, 2,000 guns are smuggled into Mexico every single day.
Mexican citizens have the right to bear arms in its constitution, but there's only one gun store in the entire country. If you go, you must present six forms of identification—including proof of employment and have a clean criminal record—to purchase a gun.
Federal officials have credited the Mexican government for its help in several of recent gun smuggling cases. In July, the two countries announced a plan to increase firearm tracing with guns seized from the cartels.
In the documentary titled "Arming Cartels: Inside the Mexican-American Gunrunning Networks," CBS News talked to cartel members about their ability to get firearms.
