WASHINGTON (AP) – One of the guns that Mexican officials say was found at the hideout of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera is associated with Fast and Furious, a failed “gun-walking” operation, according to the Justice Department.
The department said in a letter to members of Congress that a .50-caliber rifle that Mexican officials sent for tracing after Guzman’s arrest in January has since been connected to Fast and Furious.
U.S. officials say the weapon was one of 19 firearms that Mexican authorities said was recovered from the hideout and was the only one determined to be associated with the botched sting operation, in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives permitted gun-runners to buy weapons in hopes of tracking them and disrupting gun smuggling rungs.
The rifle was bought in July 2010 in a straw purchase by someone not known to ATF at the time. The buyer was later identified and “became a subject” of the Fast and Furious investigation but was never indicted. The weapon is not known to be associated with any other crime, the Justice Department said.
A former U.S. official said four other firearms connected to Fast and Furious were found at a hideout in Culiacan, Mexico, where Guzman narrowly escaped capture in February 2014. He was captured about a week later in the seaside resort of Mazatlan.