The mayor and police chief of a tiny New Mexico border town were among 11 people accused on Thursday of participating in a ring alleged to have illegally sent firearms to Mexico.
A US federal indictment said the defendants have engaged in a conspiracy — based in Columbus, New Mexico — to buy firearms since January last year. Law enforcement officers executed search warrants on Thursday at the Columbus Police Department, a gun shop and eight homes.
The town is best known for a raid by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa nearly a century ago.
The indictment alleges the defendants purchased firearms favored by Mexican cartels, including AK-47-type pistols, weapons resembling AK-47 rifles — but with shorter barrels — and US Tactical 9mm caliber pistols. Authorities also said 12 firearms purchased by defendants were later found in Mexico.
Columbus Mayor Eddie Espinoza, Police Chief Angelo Vega, and town Trustee Blas Gutierrez were among those accused of firearms and smuggling charges in the 84-count indictment unsealed on Thursday afternoon.
The defendants bought approximately 200 firearms during a 14-month period from Chaparral Guns in Chaparral, New Mexico, which is owned by defendant Ian Garland, authorities said.
They’re accused of falsely claiming they were buying the firearms for themselves when they were actually acting as “straw purchasers” — buying firearms on behalf of others.
Border state gun shops are a chief source of weapons smuggling into Mexico and Mexican officials fighting that country’s increasingly violent drug cartels have complained to US officials about the flow of firearms. US authorities have, in turn, stepped up their scrutiny of travelers leaving US soil.
The investigation began after a US Border Patrol agent found a large number of firearms in a vehicle, US Attorney Kenneth Gonzales said. The priority during the year-long probe was to keep firearms from reaching Mexico, he said.
“We did everything we could,” he said. “When we knew when defendants had firearms in their possession, we seized those firearms.”
The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which took part in the investigation, has recently faced criticism after both CBS News and the non-profit Center for Public Integrity reported that agents investigating gun-running by drug cartels allowed hundreds of guns purchased in the US to go into Mexico.
The agency and prosecutors let the guns cross the border as they were building cases against traffickers, the center reported.
Thursday’s indictment said law enforcement officers confiscated 40 AK-47 type pistols, 1,580 rounds of ammunition and 30 high-capacity magazines from defendants before the items crossed the border.
The dozen firearms found in Mexico and traced back to the defendants got through the border in the early stages of the investigation, while investigators were still trying to piece things together, Gonzales said.
The Associated Press left a message on Espinoza’s telephone seeking comment. No listing could be found for Vega or Gutierrez.
Listings also could not be found for two of the other three village trustees, and a woman who answered the telephone at the home of the third trustee, William Canfield, said he had no immediate comment. A dispatcher who answered the telephone at the Columbus Police Department also had no comment.
The US Attorney’s Office said one of the 11 defendants, Ignacio Villalobos, remains at large and is considered a fugitive. The other 10 were set for initial appearances yesterday in US federal court in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Columbus lies just a few kilometers north of Palomas, Mexico. It sees tourists curious about Villa’s raid on March 9, 1916, which took place 95 years ago on Wednesday.
An estimated 500 to 600 revolutionaries attacked Columbus before dawn in the raid, setting buildings in the business district on fire. US soldiers with the 13th Calvary at Camp Furlong, on the outskirts of Columbus, set up machine guns in the town to fight Villa’s forces. The raid left 18 Americans dead, most of them civilians. About 70 to 75 revolutionaries also died.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese