Just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be anymore twists to the Gunrunner/Fast and Furious saga, it appears that a new batch o’ sidewinders has crawled out from under a rock in the arms to Mexico game. Not to be outdone by the stooges at Justice, it looks like the State Department has set up shop and has opened for business. Their primary customer you ask? None other than Mexico’s Zetas cartel.

This from PJM:

Phil Jordan, a former CIA operative and one-time leader of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center, claims that the Obama administration is running guns to the violent Zetas cartel through the direct commercial sale of military grade weapons:

Jordan, who served as director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center in 1995, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons purchased in the Dallas area through El Paso.

Robert “Tosh” Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot, told the Times he supported Jordan’s allegations, adding that the Zetas have reportedly bought property in the Columbus, N.M., border region to stash weapons and other contraband.

“From the intel, it appears that a company was set up in Mexico to purchase weapons through the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales Program, and that the company may have had a direct link to the Zetas.”

I’ll give you three guesses (and the first two don’t count) as to just who runs U.S. Direct.

The U.S. Direct Commercial Sales program is run from the U.S. State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. It regulates and licenses private U.S. companies’ overseas sales of weapons and other defense materials, defense services, and military training. This does not include the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, which authorized sales to foreign governments.

Oh, but wait it gets better (or worse, dependin’), From the El Paso Times:

A federal law enforcement agency in El Paso said it has no information about the allegations that the Zetas are smuggling weapons through El Paso.

“They are purchasing weapons in the Dallas area and are flying them to El Paso, and then they are taking them across the border into Juárez,” said Jordan, a law enforcement consultant and former DEA official who still has contacts in the law enforcement community.

Jordan said the Zetas were flying weapons caches out of the Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, and after they arrive in the El Paso vicinity, the Zetas smuggled them into Juárez.

“What’s ironic is that the DEA also uses the Alliance Airport for some of its operations,” Jordan said. “The Zetas were working out of a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in the Dallas area to smuggle the weapons to the border.”

The DEA has its Aviation Operations Center at Alliance.

This outfit makes BATFE look like a bunch of lilac water wearing greenhorns:

Under the Direct Commercial Sales program, the U.S. State Department regulates and licenses businesses to sell weapons and defense services and training for export. Last year, according to U.S. statistics, the program was used to provide Mexico $416.5 million worth of weapons and equipment, including military-grade weaponry.

The program is different from the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program, which operates on a government-to-government basis.

Plumlee said military-grade weapons were found in a Juárez warehouse two years ago, and some of them were moved later to a ranch elsewhere in Juárez. Arms stash houses have also been reported in places across the border from Columbus and Antelope Wells, N.M.

“They’ve found anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era,” Plumlee said. Other weapons found include grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor.

“The information about the arms trafficking was provided to our U.S. authorities long before the ‘Columbus 11′ investigation began,” said Plumlee, referring to recent indictments accusing several Columbus city officials of arms trafficking in conjunction with alleged accomplices in El Paso and Chaparral, NM.

We’re gonna need more rope, and a bigger posse boys.

(h/t: Crawfish’s Claw)




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40 comments
a15254
a15254

hillary and the demonicrats will support anything to destroy the second amendment and the lazy ass republicans won't lift a finger.

Velvet
Velvet

Hillary Clinton's Chief of Staff since 1996, Huma Abedin (and Weiner's wife) is closely associated with her Muslim Brotherhood family and even joined Clinton at an event with her mother, Saleha Abedin, at Dar El-Hekma College in Saudi Arabia. Also present was a close associate of Saleha Abedin—Suheir Qureshi. Qureshi's name later appeared in several prominent Arab newspapers when it was revealed that she belonged to a list of 63 members of the secret arm of the Muslim Brotherhood called The Sisterhood. The full list was later revealed—Huma Abedin’s mother is on it. Huma's brother—Hassan Abedin—also collaborates with Omar Naseef and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, two of the most influential terror supporters in the world. Amazing how these facts go unreported while the USA is engaged in War yet the words "Muslim Extremist" do not get mentioned by this administration.

KenInMontana
KenInMontana

The whole "Muslim" thing is a classic "smokescreen operation" and it was pretty well done in the beginning,but it is coming unraveled at the edges. The Islamic fundamentalist movement is cause for concern, however consider how long it has been since they have mounted any major operations outside of the "Muslim neighborhood. No I am not a "truther", I believe that there were major "poochscrews" by our government leading up to 9/11 but I don't believe it was an inside job. That said, it has been used effectively, but we need to be focused much closer to home.

Velvet
Velvet

I look forward to your next update. I do agree with you, though wanted to point out the interesting circle of "friends." I cannot recall the details, but wasn't there a plane crash not long ago with tons of cocaine on it that had left Texas? Hm, will have to look for that story again, it didn't get much press at the time.

KenInMontana
KenInMontana

The whole "Muslim" thing is a classic "smokescreen operation" and it was pretty well done in the beginning,but it is coming unraveled at the edges. The Islamic fundamentalist movement is cause for concern, however consider how long it has been since they have mounted any major operations outside of the "Muslim neighborhood. No I am not a "truther", I believe that there were major "poochscrews" by our government leading up to 9/11 but I don't believe it was an inside job. That said, it has been used effectively, but we need to be focused much closer to home.

Velvet
Velvet

Hillary Clinton's Chief of Staff since 1996, Huma Abedin (and Weiner's wife) is closely associated with her Muslim Brotherhood family and even joined Clinton at an event with her mother, Saleha Abedin, at Dar El-Hekma College in Saudi Arabia. Also present was a close associate of Saleha Abedin—Suheir Qureshi. Qureshi's name later appeared in several prominent Arab newspapers when it was revealed that she belonged to a list of 63 members of the secret arm of the Muslim Brotherhood called The Sisterhood. The full list was later revealed—Huma Abedin’s mother is on it. Huma's brother—Hassan Abedin—also collaborates with Omar Naseef and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, two of the most influential terror supporters in the world. Amazing how these facts go unreported while the USA is engaged in War yet the words "Muslim Extremist" do not get mentioned by this administration.

Velvet
Velvet

Don't forget, Hillary's BFF is Soros who is now dumping non-family interests in his Hedgefund ops so that he can remain under the radar of new SEC rules concerning transparency of investors.

KenInMontana
KenInMontana

Bush? Elmer you and AJ really need to catch up here as well as do more research on the third world and the realities of it, this type of thing as been going on out there for longer than our nation has existed. Past administrations have been smarter about it, kept it lower key and further away than arm's length. But none have been this "bold" or this flat stupid about it as this current one. That said, I could relate some stories that would make your hair fall out all on it's own, but not before my warrens are complete,because I'm not quite ready to drop off the radar and go "black".

Alicia
Alicia

is this about gun control or something else.i value your opinion and a reply would be appreciated.

Alicia
Alicia

is this about gun control or something else.i value your opinion and a reply would be appreciated.

KenInMontana
KenInMontana

I think gun control is a small part of it, but there is more going on here. I don't think it's the "globalist cabal" thing, but what exactly I'm not sure yet. Maybe Obama is looking to cause a collapse in Mexico, maybe he thinks retiring to his own little banana republic would be a good thing to do as things are starting to get too warm for him here? That part is joking, but I am still digging on this. As soon as I know more I will be doing a follow up.

Alicia
Alicia

thanks for the reply and keep up the good work.

KenInMontana
KenInMontana

In reality there is not much profit in firearms at the level of "gun shop owners". I know the owner of the largest of our local shops, his markup on a handgun is about 25-30 dollars and that's pretty much standard in the industry. The type of volume to needed to make real profits can really only be done by a very few entities, corporate (manufacturing) , blackmarket, or governments.

Shelly Sands
Shelly Sands

We have the most incompotent bunch of idiots running the show. I'm so angered by this I don't dare write out what I really think.

AmericanborninCanada
AmericanborninCanada

"Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son

A man had to answer for the wicked that he done

Take all the rope in Texas

Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys

Hang them high in the street for all the people to see that"

I like the way you deal the news KeninMontana!

Am I the only one screaming "treason"? I sure hope not.

KenInMontana
KenInMontana

Heh, Toby Keith's "Beer for my horses", one of my favorite songs. :)

Alicia
Alicia

i have just reached a new level of pissedness(real word?)

Alicia
Alicia

a year ago i would have disagreed with your comment,now i am not so sure.

Persephone
Persephone

Don't the Zetas have ties to Hezbolah?

Thanks for the great report, KenInMontana.

What sort of timeline are we looking at here, do you know?

KenInMontana
KenInMontana

The Zetas are one of the cartels that have been linked to Hezbollah, they are also the most notorious and probably the most powerful of the Mexican cartels.

As far as a timeline for this operation, I'm still digging, but the Mayor and Police Chief as well as nine other city officials of Columbus,NM (the "Columbus 11" the article refers to) where arrested in early March of this year on gun trafficking charges, so this operation is older than that. There are some oddities in that case as well that I am looking at as well.

KenInMontana
KenInMontana

The Zetas are one of the cartels that have been linked to Hezbollah, they are also the most notorious and probably the most powerful of the Mexican cartels.

As far as a timeline for this operation, I'm still digging, but the Mayor and Police Chief as well as nine other city officials of Columbus,NM (the "Columbus 11" the article refers to) where arrested in early March of this year on gun trafficking charges, so this operation is older than that. There are some oddities in that case as well that I am looking at as well.

Persephone
Persephone

Thanks for your work on this, KenInMontana.

This goes beyond having an excuse for stomping on our right to bear arms.

Perhaps they are wanting an excuse to cordon off an even larger area of our SW and declare it 'unsafe' for Americans.

Persephone
Persephone

Thanks for your work on this, KenInMontana.

This goes beyond having an excuse for stomping on our right to bear arms.

Perhaps they are wanting an excuse to cordon off an even larger area of our SW and declare it 'unsafe' for Americans.

Persephone
Persephone

Thanks for your work on this, KenInMontana.

This goes beyond having an excuse for stomping on our right to bear arms.

Perhaps they are wanting an excuse to cordon off an even larger area of our SW and declare it 'unsafe' for Americans.

The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz

Funny how no one talks about that. I have family that travels very often to Mexico (I just got word a few weeks ago that the cartels are now in the small farm town my family is from). My brother told me last year that there are lots of arab people in Mexico, even in the small towns- he said it was a recent development, and that was last year I heard this and it could have well been happening a few years now.

Persephone
Persephone

Thanks, Wizard.

This is yet another reason why we have to have a regime change in this country.

I just hope that there won't be a lot of civilians killed before we can get some real border security in place.

Persephone
Persephone

You're right, of course.

Too many civilians have already been killed.

I was thinking in terms of them taking potshots at aircraft, trains, etc. with this additional firepower.

Persephone
Persephone

You're right, of course.

Too many civilians have already been killed.

I was thinking in terms of them taking potshots at aircraft, trains, etc. with this additional firepower.

Persephone
Persephone

You're right, of course.

Too many civilians have already been killed.

I was thinking in terms of them taking potshots at aircraft, trains, etc. with this additional firepower.

The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz

I don't think it's about money....this administration has no understanding of it other than the "rich" have too much of it, although I would probably agree that it's not about money, but about control of behavior.

This is to arm Mexico and stir people up. Instability across our southern border runs counter to American interests (especially when Americans aren't being allowed to defend their border), as this administration has proven they do as well. Chaos is good for revolution because it allows for things to happen rapidly and the government to take power in order to combat a manufactured crisis.

AmericanborninCanada
AmericanborninCanada

I agree with stirring people up, giving aid to those hspanics in America to empower them to rise up against the gringos who "stole" their land. But I still see this mainly for ammunition (no pun intended) against the 2nd Amendment and for the UN small arms treaty.

Josh
Josh

Why not accomplish both with one crisis?

The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz

You're probably right, but I've modified my view slightly since this administration has shown hostility towards the states that defy the will of the federal government. They've threatened Texas (regarding TSA) and we've seen how they've politicized border issues and even a natural disaster in the south. There are also interesting numbers regarding presidential visits to states that blindly support the administration and those that are trying to be resistant to the growth of government. Basically, I don't think anything is beneath them, and we have to also consider that this administration is outsourcing policy to radicals.....they want revolution.

Alicia
Alicia

i am not one to throw around the "impeachment" word but....