ALABAMA - A little over a month after U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted a passenger bus headed to Mexico that contained tens of thousands of bullets hidden in more than two dozens of black bins, CBP agents ended Fiscal Year 2024 by detaining a Mexican couple that tried to buy firearms and grenades from undercover agents in New Mexico.
Local governments across the U.S.-Mexico border have been on high alert in recent months as seizures of firearms and other weapons have been on the rise.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, the U.S. dealers that struck a deal for the firearms turned out to be undercover agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The complaint said that ATF agents had been communicating with the Mexican buyers since Sept. 3 and until the deal was finalized. The buyer said he would send an associate to pick up the load and the operation materialized in late September.
Fernando Espino Ortiz and Perla Janeth Ruiz Lozano ended up being arrested on Sept. 26 by CBP agents after agents intercepted their blue Dodge Durango SUV, which carried $100,000 in undeclared cash, according to Border Report.
Once the car arrived at an undisclosed location in Bernalillo County, the undercover ATF agents showed Espino the guns and he allegedly assured them he had brough the cash.
Espino was supposed to be paid $5,000 by a "weapons broker" in Mexico to pick up three M249 rifles and a M134 machine gun from two black market gun dealers in Albuquerque. The deal originally also involved the purchase of a crate of 30 grenades, but the Mexican buyer did not come up with enough cash for its purchase.
The case is similar to one that took place in Texas earlier this year, when a couple was arrested for attempting to smuggle thousands of rounds of ammunition into Mexico after they told investigators they had crossed the border to sell goats and buy clothing.
Espino and Lozano were traveling with two minors and crossed into the U.S from Palomas, Mexico. There was no immediate word on what happened to the children. The couple is now facing charges of illegal possession of a machine gun, conspiracy to traffic firearms, receipt and possession of a destructive device and aiding and abetting.
According to court records, once the guns were inside the vehicle, local and federal law enforcement officers moved in to arrest Espino and Ruiz. Records show the undercover agents saw Ruiz holding a cell phone during the arrest, and then one of them received a call from the Mexican buyer asking what was going on, as screams were heard in the background.
Ruiz denied knowing about the purchase of the weapons but told the agents she saw cash in her blue Durango and the machine gun being loaded into the vehicle. Both are scheduled to appear in a federal courtroom in Albuquerque on Sept. 30 for a detention hearing.
According to data from CBP, there have been more than 4,500 seizures of firearms and ammunition during Fiscal Year 2024.
Compared to last year, ammunition and gun parts seized by CBP agents more than tripled in 2024. In all of FY2023, CBP seized 547,610 ammo and gun parts but that number has jumped to more than 2,100,000 this year, with the bulk of it coming from ammunition and gun parts.
Drug smuggling is also on the rise. According to the most recent data published by CBP, as of August, the agency had seized almost 500,000 pounds of drugs along the U.S. Southwest border.
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