When he says 'these guys' - he's referring to cartel representatives who came straight to his Tucson home to buy high-powered weapons like AR That's the lower part with the serial number on it. And he came back the next day and asked if I had more," Detty says. As a federally licensed gun dealer, Detty did the mandatory background check on the Hispanic young man, looking to buy all these guns.
That's when Detty started to think twice about his new client's intentions. That was the beginning of Operation Wide Receiver.
Operation Wide Receiver started in and predated Fast and Furious by about two years. This became an operation, Detty says, because the ATF immediately recognized he was dealing with a Mexican cartel representative.
This man had endless resources, and the ATF wanted to find out where all that money was coming from. All with the expectation the guns would be tracked, assets would be seized and this particular cartel would be taken down.
Over the next six months, Detty would sell at least assault rifles and. Tens of thousands of dollars regularly changing hands in Detty's own living room. The former US Marine felt this was his duty as an American patriot -- to honor his country and do whatever it takes to make it a safer place. Conversations were recorded, even videotaped by hidden cameras in Detty's home.
But as weeks turned to months and months turned to years, he eventually realized this was not going to happen. Fast forward five years to early , as US officials dealt with the backlash of agent Brian Terry's death and subsequent Fast and Furious investigation. If that's the case, then we'll find out," said President Barack Obama. None of them high-ranking cartel members, only foot soldiers charged with lying on background checks.
But what's worse, Detty says, is the attempted cover-up by the federal government. Had agent Terry not been killed, we may have never known about the calculated effort of letting guns walk into Mexico. The government allowed licensed gun dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers so that they could continue to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels. Motivated by a sense of patriotic duty, Tucson gun dealer and author Mike Detty alerted the local ATF office when he was first approached by suspected cartel associates.
Detty made the commitment and assumed the risks involved to help the feds make their case, often selling guns to these thugs from his home in the dead of night. Though the case took several twists and turns, perhaps the cruelest turn was his betrayal by the very agency he risked everything to help.
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Tell us what you like and we'll recommend books you'll love. Sign up and get a free ebook! Operation Wide Receiver An Informant? A report issued on January 30 by the Minority Staff of the House Oversight Committee, indicates that ATF hoped to coordinate with Mexican law enforcement during Wide Receiver, but the idea was never executed in practice.
The evidence also indicates that, between March and mid, ATF agents had contemporaneous knowledge of planned sales of firearms to known straw purchasers and repeatedly designed surveillance operations of these illegal firearms purchases without effectuating arrests.
According to documents obtained by the Committee, agents avoided interdicting weapons despite having the legal authority to do so in order to build a bigger case.
Despite repeated failed attempts to coordinate surveillance with Mexican law enforcement, the ATF agents continued to attempt these operations. Talking Points Memo has also noted that claims about coordination with Mexican law enforcement during Wide Receiver are false.
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