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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (599005)	1/27/2011 8:26:44 AM
From: Alighieri	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573564

34 in Arizona Charged With Running Guns to Mexican Cartel Jan 26, 2011 – 11:49 AM Text Size Print this page\|EmailShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on DiggShare on Lifestream Mara Gay Mara Gay Contributor A grand jury has indicted 34 people for allegedly buying hundreds of guns in Arizona with the intent of selling them to one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels. In a massive sweep, federal agents arrested 20 of the suspects Tuesday. They are accused of purchasing an estimated 700 weapons, including AK-47 assault rifles, and conspiring to sell them to the brutal Sinaola cartel in Mexico. Federal authorities in both countries say so-called "straw buyers" add more deadly firepower to Mexico's devastating and bloody drug war by buying large stockpiles of weapons legally in the United States and smuggling them across the border. "The massive size of this operation sadly exemplifies the magnitude of the problem: Mexican drug lords go shopping for war weapons in Arizona," Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney in Arizona, said in a statement. All of the people named in the 53-count indictment are U.S. citizens or legal residents. Federal authorities named a single licensed gun dealer, Lone Wolf Trading Co. in Glendale, Ariz., as the source of most of the guns. Many of those indicted were able to purchase four or five guns from Lone Wolf on the same day. Federal authorities are considering requiring dealers to notify officials when a single buyer purchases multiple guns, but the practice remains legal, and Lone Wolf is not accused of any illegal activity. No one at the company answered the phone this morning. The arrests came a day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa in Guanajuato to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to help fight the war against the cartels and stop the flow of weapons into Mexico. As they met, however, multiple news agencies in Mexico noted that protesters shouted "no guns!" in an apparent reference to the some 60,000 weapons that have been seized in Mexico and traced back to the United States. More than 15,000 people were killed in drug-related violence in Mexico last year alone, and more than twice that number have been killed in Mexico since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels.