In a Fox News report filed from Arizona, the correspondent gets on the ground accounts from a former DEA official. Watch what he has to say about Operation Fast and Furious here.
Fast and Furious: Targets of gun sting were FBI informers ATF’s cartel suspects worked for other agency
by Dennis Wagner – Feb. 9, 2012 11:07 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com | 35 comments
Mexican cartel suspects targeted in the troubled gun-trafficking probe known as Operation Fast and Furious were actually working as FBI informants at the time, according to a congressional memo that describes the case’s mission as a “failure.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has acknowledged that guns were allowed into the hands of Mexican criminals for more than a year in the hope of catching “big fish.”
The memorandum from staffers with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform says the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration were investigating a drug-trafficking organization and had identified cartel associates a year before the ATF even learned who they were. At some point before the ATF’s Fast and Furious investigation progressed — congressional investigators don’t know when — the cartel members
became FBI informants.
“These were the ‘big fish,’ ” says the memo, written on behalf of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. “DEA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had jointly opened a separate investigation targeting these two cartel associates. … Yet, ATF spent the next year engaging in the reckless tactics of Fast and Furious in attempting to identify them.”
According to Issa and Grassley, the cartel suspects, whose names were not released, were regarded by FBI as “national-security assets.” One pleaded guilty to a minor offense. The other was not charged. “Both became FBI informants and are now considered unindictable,” the memo says. “This means that the entire goal of Fast and Furious — to target these two individuals and bring them to justice — was a failure.”
Representatives with the Justice Department and its subagencies declined to comment.
In a statement e-mailed to The Republic, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the Oversight committee, disputed GOP conclusions and stressed that Issa “has repeatedly made unsubstantiated allegations against law- enforcement agencies” while investigating Fast and Furious. Cummings agreed that the ATF was hampered by communication breakdowns, but he rejected implications that other agencies had
similar failures.
Fast and Furious was launched by the ATF in November 2009. At the same time, the memo says, FBI and DEA agents who were conducting a narcotics investigation identified a suspected ringleader of the gun-trafficking organization, Manuel Celis-Acosta. According to federal records, DEA supervisors shared their discovery with ATF agents, but the suspect was not arrested until a year later, when guns from Fast and Furious were linked to the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
At that point, the memo says, Celis-Acosta gave names of his Sinaloa cartel associates to ATF agents, who learned that they already were working for the FBI. The associates are not identified in the congressional memo.
The overlap reflects the spiderweb nature of trafficking organizations in Arizona and the labyrinth of law-enforcement agencies pursuing them.
Celis-Acosta was indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2011 with 19 other suspects on charges related to firearms and marijuana trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering. He is awaiting trial in U.S.
District Court.
According to federal prosecutors, Celis-Acosta’s gun-trafficking business became involved with a man named Luis Hernandez-Flores, allegedly part of a separate marijuana-smuggling organization in the Valley. The DEA, working in a task force with Glendale and Phoenix police, set up wiretap surveillance to gather evidence against Hernandez- Flores and others.
In federal filings, prosecutors say Celis-Acosta identified Hernandez- Flores as an illegal-firearms broker for the Mexican cartel figures.
In March 2010, Hernandez-Flores and more than 40 other suspects were indicted by a state grand jury. Charges were thrown out in June 2011, according to Maricopa County Superior Court records, because a Glendale detective supplied false information for a wiretap affidavit.
A judge ruled that the detective, Laura Beeler, was “not a reliable witness.” Beeler was investigated for alleged perjury but not charged. Prosecutors and Beeler’s attorney said the problem arose from her attempts to shield a confidential informant.
The Republican memo does not address previous ATF assertions that the Phoenix-based investigation was aimed at drug lords south of the border.
For example, on Feb. 3, Mexican federal police reportedly seized several weapons from Fast and Furious during the arrest of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, under U.S. indictment and suspected of being a top enforcer for Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “Chapo” Guzaman. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that 40 other high-powered weapons from the case were found at Marrufo’s unoccupied home in Juarez.
The Republican staff analysis purportedly is based on investigative records and interviews with personnel at federal law-enforcement agencies. Investigative documents and transcripts were not made available.
Issa is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is leading a congressional probe of Fast and Furious. Grassley is ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In their memo to GOP colleagues, they conclude that Fast and Furious was not only flawed strategically, but undermined by law-enforcement negligence, communication breakdowns and “serious management failures.”
Former DEA chief says 3 other federal agencies knew about Operation Fast and Furious
By William La Jeunesse
Published February 10, 2012 | FoxNews.com
While criticism surrounding Operation Fast and Furious has so far focused on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, three other federal agencies knew about the operation and some of their agents tried to stop it, according to the former chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Tucson.
Tony Coulson, the DEA’s agent in charge of Southern Arizona during Fast and Furious, says many federal field agents knew the ATF was walking guns to Mexico, but supervisors told them to back off when they objected.
“Clearly, we went too far,” Coulson said. “The question we had among rank and file law enforcement was, ‘When is someone going to call ATF on this, when is someone going to tell them to stop?’”
Coulson’s remarks jibe with what is already known about the operation. The DEA, the FBI and ICE, also known as Immigration Customs and Enforcement, all played roles in the investigation.
Coulson said those agencies share the blame since top officials knew, but did little to stop, the gunrunning effort. Coulson is among the first senior public officials, current or former, who admit knowing
about the botched operation.
Coulson claims he raised objections to then-DEA chief Elizabeth Kempshall, but was told it was taken care of. After attending a meeting with ATF agent in charge Bill Newell, Coulson said that’s when he and other agents “knew (Fast and Furious) was not some sort of benign, pie-in-the-sky publicity stunt. Guns were actually getting in the hands of criminals.”
According to Congressional testimony and documents obtained by Fox News, the other agencies involved include:
• ICE
Immigration and Customs Enforcement assigned agent Layne France to work alongside ATF in the operation. Sources say France replaced ICE senior agent Ed Hamel, who objected to the ATF ‘gunwalking’ strategy.
As a member of the Fast and Furious task force, France received copies of all ATF investigative reports, and sources say France knew the operation in detail. Congressional investigators want to know who at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security saw France’s reports, and how much he reported up the chain of command about the operation.
“I don’t think ICE can get away from the fact they were there side by side with ATF. They were not willing participants. This was something they were told to do, but they were still there,” Coulson said.
Sources say ICE agents who interdicted and seized weapons on the Mexican border got in a battle with ATF over tactics. Coulson says ICE agents stationed at Arizona ports of entry were told by supervisors to let the issue go, because ‘people above their pay grade’ had already signed off on the operation.
That version of events is supported by a document obtained Thursday by Fox News. Twice in 2009, ICE was forced to halt gun investigations because their inquiries conflicted with Operation Fast and Furious. ATF and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office told ICE “not to interfere” because Fast and Furious took priority.
Sources say ICE Director John Morton ordered an internal review of ICE involvement in Fast and Furious after the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
An ICE official said the agency could not comment on the latest claims due to an ongoing investigation. ICE officials admit they knew about Fast and Furious, but claim the agency did not know about the controversial “tactics” involved until they were reported in the media.
• DEA
The Drug Enforcement Administration actually helped initiate Fast and Furious when one of its own targets, suspected drug dealer Manuel Celis Acosta, began to acquire guns for the Sinaloa Cartel. The DEA invited ATF to take over the weapons phase of that investigation.
The two agencies shared the same floor and same ‘wire room’ in Phoenix, where agents listened to suspects’ conversations on court-approved wiretaps. The DEA also had initiated an investigation into the “money men” behind Fast and Furious – two cartel associates in the El Paso-Juarez area — but deliberately did not tell the ATF. However the names of the two high-level cartel contacts were written “frequently” on call logs inside the wire room, according to a congressional memo, but ATF agents failed to notice. This information was available in January 2010, one year before Fast and Furious was finally taken down.
• FBI
The FBI had also opened an investigation of the two high-level cartel associates targeted by the ATF. The FBI designated both men national security assets but didn’t alert the ATF. In exchange for one individual’s guilty plea to a minor count of “Alien in Possession of a Firearm” both men became FBI informants and are now considered ‘un-indictable,’ according to a congressional review of the situation.
When the ATF learned the FBI knew, but shielded their informants, Agent Jim Needles called it “frustrating.” Attorney General Eric Holder said he would “look into” the lack of information sharing. However, sources who have attended classified briefings say the two are both are still inside the cartel and their identities cannot be compromised, suggesting the FBI will likely escape congressional scrutiny, despite their awareness of the tactics used in Fast and
Furious.
