HomeNewsAnalysisInSight: Gun Traffickers Arrested in Texas a Wake-up Call?
ANALYSIS

InSight: Gun Traffickers Arrested in Texas a Wake-up Call?

ARMS TRAFFICKING / 2 MAR 2011 BY ELYSSA PACHICO EN

Monday's arrest of three men in Texas for trafficking guns, one of which was apparently used in the attack which killed U.S. agent Jaime Zapata in mid-February, raises several key issues about the problem of gun trafficking at the Mexico border.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas, one of the three guns used in the attack that killed Zapata was originally purchased by Otilio Osorio on October 10, 2010, in Dallas. Osorio was already under investigation by federal authorities for alleged involvement in a gun trafficking ring, along with his brother Ranferi and their neighbor Kelvin Leon Morrison, also arrested Monday.

The investigation against the Osorio brothers began in November, when an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) met with them and asked for 40 guns to smuggle into Mexico, court documents say. The two Osorio brothers reportedly loaded the weapons, all with obliterated serial numbers, into the informant's vehicle and drove to Laredo, where they were stopped and identified by local police. Morrison, who had accompanied them in the truck, was also detained.

It is unclear why the ATF waited to mobilize and get an arrest warrant for Osorio after the November incident. It is also unclear how the firearm purchased by Osorio in October, allegedly at a gun show, later turned up in the hands of the Zetas, who were responsible for the attack that killed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jaime Zapata on February 15.

But it already looks as though the Osorio case may become a textbook example of the havoc that U.S. "straw buyers" can indirectly cause in Mexico. As detailed by InSight's joint GunRunners investigative project with PBS Frontline, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University and the Center for Public Integrity, middlemen buy high-power assault weapons in the U.S. from licensed stores or gun shows. They then move the weapons south where they may end up in the hands of characters like alias 'El Piolin,' presented as the main suspect in Zapata's death. 

The Osorio case also raises two key issues. The first is the need for legislation that would better allow ATF agents to track "straw buyers" who purchase a high number of assault weapons within a short period of time. Morrison, arrested Monday along with the Osorio brothers on gun trafficking charges, reportedly bought 24 weapons within a three-month period in 2010. If licensed gun shops did more to report suspicious sales of firearms, it could help the ATF to intercept more weapons before they head south, and build stronger cases against middlemen buyers for the Mexican cartels.

The second issue is the alarmingly short amount of time it took the gun allegedly purchased by Osorio to apparently end up in the hands of the Zetas in San Luis de Potosi. In terms of "time to crime" -- the measurement that the ATF uses to track how soon a gun purchased legally in the U.S. ends up at a crime scene in Mexico -- this is only about four months. This is a reminder that there are sophisticated and efficient arms trafficking networks at work in border states like Texas.

There are 3,800 gun retailers in Texas. The ATF's Project Gunrunner program, which has a field office in Dallas, is supposed to monitor all of these dealerships for suspicious sales. But without the legislation needed to track bulk sales of assault weapons, the ATF is working with one hand tied behind its back. And it looks as though the "time to crime" figures aren't getting any lower.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

ARMS TRAFFICKING / 30 NOV 2021

A string of US citizens and residents accused of smuggling weapons into Haiti underscores how guns purchased in the United…

CHINA AND CRIME / 29 SEP 2021

Mexican geoduck clam populations are suffering as legal harvests are threatened by rampant poaching, which has driven the species onto…

COCA / 10 FEB 2023

Guatemala is dealing with the rapid expansion of coca leaf plantations, but there is little evidence the country is becoming…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…