Mexico has managed after 12 years to prosecute the fast and furious case. A judge this Sunday ordered the capture of seven people – former government officials and drug lords – related to the controversial operation of illegal arms trafficking from the United States to Mexico. Among those named are Genaro García Luna, the former Secretary of Public Security during the Government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012); Luis Cárdenas Palomino, intelligence coordinator of the Federal Police in the same period; and the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín El Chapo Guzman Loera. The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has not revealed the names of the other four defendants and if any of them are American.
The fast and furious operative It occurred between 2009 and 2011 when the United States Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) – with the permission of the Obama Administration, but without notifying Congress – allowed the exit of 2,500 illegal weapons to Mexico. The plan, which sought to trace the activities of the drug cartels through weaponry, failed and the trail of the weapons was lost. In February 2011, one of them killed the US agent of the immigration and customs office (ICE) Jaime Zapata in an attack in San Luis Potosí.
The Prosecutor’s Office indicates that the then officials knew of this operation “absolutely illegal and inadmissible” and that Guzmán Loera was the leader of the main organization that received the weapons. “It was established that these weapons were not only illegally introduced into the country, but that they have also been used in various criminal acts, which have already been investigated and prosecuted in Mexico,” the Prosecutor’s Office explained in a statement. El Chapo is in a maximum security prison in Colorado (USA) serving a life sentence for drug trafficking; García Luna is awaiting a trial against him in New York for his complicity with the drug cartels; Cárdenas Palomino was arrested in July 2021 and sent to the Altiplano prison, in Almoloya de Juárez, accused of torture in the case Florence Cassez.
The operation was one of the greatest tensions in relations between Mexico and the United States. The Mexican government had not been informed of the implementation of the plan. The death of more than one US agent at the hands of one of these weapons generated a debate in the US Congress about the use of public funds for this type of operation. In 2012, a report on the case exempted then-US attorney Eric Holder from the failure of Fast and Furious. “We have been informed that the North American authorities have been in charge of investigating and defining the responsibilities of the public servants of that country,” the Prosecutor’s Office added this Sunday.
The Administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has asked the United States for explanations about the case. In May 2020, the Foreign Ministry sent a note to know the details of the operation, although until now it is unknown if there has been a response or exchange of information on the matter with the US Government. In addition, the Mexican government has launched a fight against arms trafficking from the northern border: in August it filed the first lawsuit against 11 arms companies that have facilitated its illegal traffic to Mexico.
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