Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
In 2023, Jorge Zúñiga-Aguilera was sentenced in Arizona to 27 months in federal prison for trafficking at least 82 firearms, one of which was connected to the murder of a Mexican.
In another case, in Laredo, Texas, Jaime Jesús Esquivel, an illegal exporter of weapons sent to Mexican cartels, was prosecuted, according to a report by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
DOJ, along with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), are applying the new gun-trafficking prosecution tools that the Bipartisan Secure Communities Act gives them has granted.
“These new legal authorities provide the Department of Justice with essential tools to prosecute gun traffickers, among other things, by making it a federal crime to act as a front man for firearms intended for illegal use,” acknowledges the government of President Joe Biden. in a joint report of the aforementioned agencies.
Thus, the DOJ has charged more than 100 people with firearms trafficking or being a front man (or both).
“The provision on firearms trafficking has proven to be particularly useful on the southwestern border, since more than half of all charges under that crime have been filed by the Federal Prosecutors (USAO) of the border states,” acknowledges the Biden administration.
The efforts also include actions by the Treasury Department, which imposes sanctions on people involved in trafficking high-caliber weapons, the White House said.
The cartels in the crosshairs
In fiscal year 2023, according to a new report, seizures of firearms intended to be trafficked into Mexico doubled.
In Laredo, Texas, specifically, the DHS seized more than twice as many weapons, said Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent, who is part of the San Antonio Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Service, Craig Larrabee; as well as the acting director of field operations for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Laredo, Texas, Eugene Crawford; Houston ATF Deputy Special Agent Robert Topper; and Assistant United States Attorney Michael Makens.
“Investigations to take down criminal networks have greatly benefited from increased interagency collaboration, both within DHS and with our federal partners,” Larrabee acknowledged. “Keeping guns and ammunition out of the hands of criminals is vital to keeping communities safe on both sides of the border.”
Director Crawford recognized that keeping guns away from criminal organizations is essential to reducing their power.
“Preventing firearms and money from reaching transnational criminal organizations is vital to demeaning, disrupting and dismantling their networks,” he said.
He added that there has been a greater deployment of technology and intelligence for operations on the border.
“Mexican transnational criminal organizations obtain firearms and ammunition primarily from the United States… This has resulted in the proliferation of United States-based illegal firearms trafficking schemes perpetrated by illicit firearms traffickers, individuals, and other criminal groups taking advantage of the lawsuit,” said ATF’s Topper.