Corruption Runs DEEP in BATF

Mexicans grow very tired of the high-handed USGOV talk of corruption in high places in the government in Mexico when the fish rots from the head down in the US as well.

By now, I'm sure that you heard that ATF Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge George Gillett's personal handgun was found at the scene of a gun battle between the Mexican Army (SEDENA) and the Sinaloa Federation. The matter is all the more infamous because Maria Susana Gamez, a Mexican beauty queen was one of five dead at the scene.

Fox News asked, "How did a gun belonging to a former assistant special agent in charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives end up at a crime scene in Mexico where five died, including a Mexican beauty queen?" But it's not just Fox News and the American Congress who want answers. The Mexican people want them too. And they don't hear President Obama talking about anything but going to Hawaii on vacation for three weeks.

Maria Susana Flores Gamez, 

deceased beauty queen

We know that President Obama won't be doing much about this because his fingerprints and those of Attorney General Eric Holder are all over Operation Fast and Furious, the US Government program that allowed over 2,000 firearms to be transferred from the US to Mexico through straw buyers. In addition to the handgun registered personally to ASAC Gilette, another weapon found at the crime scene was traced to a Uriel Patino, who illegally bought more than 600 guns and is a main suspect in the controversial Operation Fast and Furious run out of the Phoenix office of the ATF. 

After the Fast and Furious scandal broke, ASAC Gillette was promoted and sent to BATF Headquarters to a cushy liaison job (requiring almost no work at all). Some maintain that this was his reward for keeping his mouth shut about what he knew.

I suspect that Attorney General Holder didn't know that he provided his own Fabrique National (FN) 57 handgun to the cartels as well. Was it a personal gift to the Sinaloa Federation in appreciation? I don't know. Maybe Mr. Gillette can tell us. Only he really knows the whole story. We do know that George Gillette lied on his application to purchase the handgun. 

(Fox News) Gillett purchased the weapon at Legendary Arms, a Phoenix gun store. On the federal form 4473 used to buy the gun, Gillett used the ATF office address, 201 East Washington, and said "Apt 940." On subsequent purchase, Gillett used a commercial address, that of a strip mall. 

Both actions are illegal, since ATF regulations require buyers use their residential address. "Lying on form 4473 is a felony and can be punished by up to five years in prison in addition to fines," Sen. Charles Grassley said in a letter Wednesday to Michael Horowitz in the Office of Inspector General. "I request that you initiate an investigation into these matters and that you specifically examine whether Mr. Gillett was the purchaser as indicated by these documents, why the forms list multiple, inaccurate residential addresses while purchasing the weapons, and how the weapon purchased on January 7, 2010 ended up in Mexico."

Does anyone really believe that Attorney General Holder wants to see George Gillette sent to prison for five years? If that happens, will Gillette break and go public with his story?

FN Herstal 

(Fox News) "Why would the assistant in charge of that office be buying guns in the first place?" Grassley said in an interview with Fox News. That would raise the question of the extent to which that person might be involved in the gun trafficking that was going on and profiting from it. ... These are legitimate questions."

Assistant Special Agent in Charge George Gillette says that he sold the handgun on the Internet because he'd "run into a few financial problems". Note that sales of this particular handgun are restricted to law enforcement and the military. AND the ASAC is selling it on the INTERNET? Nobody in Mexico will believe that lie. The fish rots from the head down and George Gillette is not the head of the fish. 

The Herstal pistol is nicknamed a "cop-killer" because of its designation as a "weapon of choice" for Mexican drug cartels.

Decapitation Count in Mexico (2008-2012)

>> WARNING <<    

Some people may find this disturbing.

Before

The US policy that pushes that the drug war be fought (down there) to the last Mexican, has been disastrous and it will be felt in the new Mexican policy toward the United States. 

The United States fueled the fire through their Operation Gunwalker Scandal. We now know that the Obama Administration plans to keep Attorney General Eric Holder, architect of the Gunwalker Scandal wherein USGOV agents sold firearms through straw buyers to drug cartels without tracking them. Arming the cartels directly may not play on MSNBC, but the Mexicans take note.

After

There may be more this year so these are not final numbers, but you can use them as a fair guess. These numbers do not include decapitations where the heads were NOT displayed to the public for public relations value.

During the first five years of the Calderon administration, 1,443 decapitation cases were reported. 

Between January and November 2011, 493 cases were reported. 

-Chihuahua leads the pack with 171 reported decapitations since the start of the Calderon administration 

-Guerrero comes in second at 140. 

-Tamaulipas with 119 reported cases since the start of the Calderon administration  

-Durango almost tied for third with 115 reported decapitations. 

-Sinaloa came in fifth, which may surprise some people, with a mere 89 reported decapitations. (What happened to Sinaloa? There were a lot of murders in Sinaloa, but it would seem that the people in that area are less inclined to decapitate their victims.)

-Mexico State, Baja California Norte, Jalisco, Coahuila and Veracruz finished behind the pack.

The cost of Mexican President's US-Sponsored and funded drug war can be balanced by the embarrassingly low number of decapitations before he and his American allies "got the heads lopping". 

There were only 37 reported decapitations in all of Mexico in 2007.

During the first three years of the Calderon administration, 10.3 large-scale massacres were reported per month. During the second three years, an average of 23 were reported on a monthly basis. 

English Source: US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration
Spanish Source: El Universal