Vegas
07-21-2011, 01:38 PM
http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2011/jul/20/menewso9-congress-questions-tampa-gun-investigatio-ar-245098/
In December, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot by a man connected to the Sinaloa drug cartel.
The death of a law enforcement agent would have been big news by itself, but it was the weapons used in the slaying that made the story scandalous. Guns found where Terry was killed were linked to a botched effort by the U.S. government to track weapons commonly used by drug cartels.
Operation Fast and Furious was run by the Justice Department and the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and has since come under heavy criticism because agents lost track of many of the weapons, including at least two in the area where Terry was killed.
Seven months earlier, ATF investigators in Tampa were running their own gun-smuggling investigation, dubbed Operation Castaway. It targeted a Florida man who was illegally trafficking about 1,000 weapons.
Now a U.S. senator and two congressmen, including Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor, want to know whether there were similar problems in the Tampa investigation.
"We are looking into allegations that Operation Castaway incorporated the same policies as Operation Fast and Furious, allowing guns to be purchased, or straw purchasers to buy guns, and then allow those guns to be transferred to third parties and not follow the guns," said Beth Levine, a spokeswoman for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
In December, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot by a man connected to the Sinaloa drug cartel.
The death of a law enforcement agent would have been big news by itself, but it was the weapons used in the slaying that made the story scandalous. Guns found where Terry was killed were linked to a botched effort by the U.S. government to track weapons commonly used by drug cartels.
Operation Fast and Furious was run by the Justice Department and the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and has since come under heavy criticism because agents lost track of many of the weapons, including at least two in the area where Terry was killed.
Seven months earlier, ATF investigators in Tampa were running their own gun-smuggling investigation, dubbed Operation Castaway. It targeted a Florida man who was illegally trafficking about 1,000 weapons.
Now a U.S. senator and two congressmen, including Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor, want to know whether there were similar problems in the Tampa investigation.
"We are looking into allegations that Operation Castaway incorporated the same policies as Operation Fast and Furious, allowing guns to be purchased, or straw purchasers to buy guns, and then allow those guns to be transferred to third parties and not follow the guns," said Beth Levine, a spokeswoman for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.