JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As Mexican drug cartels persist in smuggling highly addictive and dangerous drugs into the United States, American citizens legally permitted to buy firearms are trafficking these weapons to the cartels.
Gun trafficking is nothing new, but according to U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg, gun trafficking cases linked to drug cartels and other criminal organizations outside the U.S. have been on the rise within the last year, especially in the Middle District of Florida which includes Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, and the areas surrounding those cities.
“We’ve prosecuted at least 20 different defendants who have been involved in trafficking more than 400 firearms. We’ve seen firearms attempting to go to Mexico,” Handberg said. “We’ve seen them trying to go to the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela and there are different ways they try to get those guns to go to those places.”
Hundreds of guns that federal law enforcement officers found hidden in furniture and home appliances were seized before the weapons could leave the U.S.
Many of the weapons were disassembled into multiple pieces.
The weapons being trafficked from Florida’s Middle District to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean include everything from bulks of low-caliber semi-automatic handguns and rifles to .50-caliber weapons.
“In one of these cases, we found that one of the guns that these organizations purchased ended up in a firefight between the CJNG (Cartel Jalisco New Generation) cartel in Mexico and the Mexican authorities,” Handberg said.
CJNG has a reputation for being one of the most ruthless criminal organizations in the world.
Many of the guns trafficked to CJNG and other crime organizations outside the U.S. aren’t guns that are stolen from people’s cars or homes.
U.S. citizens purchase the weapons that have been making their way to the hands of criminal organizations from American gun stores. According to federal authorities, the guns are being sold through an illegal practice called a “Straw Purchase.”
News4JAX consulted with Z. Farhat, the manager of the Green Acres gun store in Jacksonville, to learn more about straw purchases and how they are pulled off.
“A straw purchase is when someone brings a buddy into the gun store with them and does everything. Picks the gun out. Pays for the gun, but when it’s time to do the background check, he slides the paperwork over to his buddy; basically, using him as a straw man to pass the background check. Ultimately, the firearm isn’t for the person filling out the paperwork, it’s for the buddy who paid for it and picked it out,” Farhat said. “I can’t have one person fill out the paperwork and have another person pay. That’s a straw purchase and anytime that comes up in our store, we have to cancel the sale. I can’t sell the gun to either person.”
If a federally licensed gun store knowingly allowed a straw purchase to happen, the store could lose its license.
Still, people find other ways of supplying criminal organizations with guns through straw purchases. Farhat said people purchasing multiple different guns at one time can raise concerns, but two more scenarios really stick out.
“If that same person is buying multiple pistols a lot, then that may raise some flags, but what really raises flags is when someone comes in and buys three or four of the same make and model,” Farhat said.
If caught and convicted, the penalty for making a straw purchase is a prison sentence of up to 10 years, and up to 15 years behind bars if convicted of gun trafficking.
Still, people are willing to take that chance because supplying guns to criminal organizations outside the U.S. is profitable.
“We have individuals in which this is what that they do. We had one defendant who purchased more than 80 guns in one year. He spent more than $40,000 on firearms. He actually spent more money buying firearms than we could find that he made in legitimate employment,” Handberg said.
Although more than 400 guns have been trafficked out of Florida’s Middle District to drug cartels and other criminal organizations outside the U.S., former JSO Director of Investigations and Homeland Security turned News4JAX Crime and Safety Analyst Tom Hackney said that may realistically be just a small fraction of the number of guns that are purchased in Florida gun stores and then smuggled out of the country.
“The stats that we talked about from the middle district of Florida are pretty staggering but when you include South Florida and out of Florida and the whole country, that’s a lot of guns going out and a lot of money changing hands. Those citizens are violating the trust of the Second Amendment. It’s there to arm our citizens. Not to arm drug cartels,” Hackney said.
According to federal authorities, before the guns are smuggled out of the county, the serial number is scratched out to prevent the weapon from being traced back to the store where it was sold.
Once the guns arrive at their destination, they are converted to fully automatic weapons.
Handberg told News4JAX that investigations into trafficking guns revealed a serious demand for high-power weaponry.
“One of the rings we dismantled was trying to acquire 50-caliber firearms which are high-powered weapons that can pierce through body armor. They can help take down vehicles. They can help take down boats,” Handberg said.
Over the summer, two people were indicted on charges of running a gun trafficking enterprise. According to the indictment, the suspects helped to distribute more than 100 weapons into the Middle District of Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. The weapons included everything from machine guns to grenades that were purchased from private sellers, federally licensed gun stores and Chinese weapons manufacturers, according to federal authorities.
Handberg also said his office investigated a case in Jacksonville where a local drug trafficking ring was collecting illegal weapons.
According to Handberg, investigators followed a money trail that led them to the straw purchases of firearms from federally licensed gun stores in the Jacksonville metropolitan area.