Scores of 'Fast and Furious' Guns Found in Mexican Cartel Enforcer's Home: Report

(Newsroom America) -- Scores of guns purchased under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' "Fast and Furious" operation were found in a Mexican drug cartel enforcer's home in April, according to court records.

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that the guns were found in a home in the violence-plagued Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. Most were high-capacity assault rifles, the report said, in the home of a top enforcer of the Sinaloa cartel.

About 100 guns were transported some 350 miles from where they originated in Phoenix, the center of the ATF's operation. Cuidad Juarez is considered a central hub of gun trafficking, the Times reported.

The paper said that, according to court documents, 40 of those were discovered in the home of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez.

"These Fast and Furious guns were going to Sinaloans, and they are killing everyone down there," one U.S. government source familiar with the investigation told the Times. "But that's only how many we know came through Texas. Hundreds more had to get through."

The goal of the ATF operation, according to U.S. officials, was to allow straw purchasers to buy the high-powered weapons so the agency could then track them back to top figures within dangerous Mexican drug cartels. But almost from the beginning, earlier reports have said, the ATF lost track of most of the weapons.

Besides the Fast and Furious guns, Mexican authorities found an anti-aircraft machine gun, a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher at the home of Marrufo, the paper said.

"We have seized the most important cache of weapons in the history of Ciudad Juarez," Chihuahua state Gov. Cesar Duarte said then.

Eric Holder, Jr., the U.S. attorney general, has been under pressure by Republicans in Congress to talk about what he knew about the program and when. Holder has given conflicting answers during congressional testimony about the program, though the Justice Department and the Obama administration have denied that Holder has mislead investigators.

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