The boss of a truck driver caught with 268,000 rounds of ammunition in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, said his employee took a wrong turn on his way to deliver what he says was legal cargo bound for an Arizona dealer.
Dennis Mekenye, operations manager at Demco freight company in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, said on Thursday that driver Jabin Bogan, 27, made “a very honest mistake” when he took a wrong turn that eventually led him to Mexico on Tuesday. Mekenye said he had been in touch with US law enforcement agencies and the US consulate in Ciudad Juarez.
US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Tom Crowley said that agents in Ciudad Juarez “are looking into the specifics of what happened,” but declined further comment.
The truck’s tracking unit showed that it had entered into Mexico and that is when Mekenye said he decided to call Bogan.
“We do not go into Mexico, our company is not licensed to go into Mexico,” Mekenye said.
The driver told him over the telephone that Mexican authorities had detained him and were going to inspect the cargo. Mekenye said that Bogan informed him that after making two of his three stops in El Paso, Texas, he proceeded to drive to the third stop at company called Carefusion in El Paso before heading to Phoenix, where the ammunition was to be delivered, but he took a wrong turn and found himself at the Bridge of The Americas, unable to make a U-Turn.
“He said a cop told him to go straight and then he could make a U-turn,” Mekenye said.
He could not confirm whether the law enforcement officer Bogan talked to was from the US or Mexico. Delilah Dominguez at Carefusion said the company would not comment on whether there was cargo expected to be delivered by Demco on Tuesday. Howard Glaser, owner of United Nations Ammunition in Phoenix, said the cargo was 18,000 units of 5.56 caliber bullets like those used for ar-15 assault rifles and 250,000 .308 caliber bullets.
Glaser said he bought these surplus rounds from Wideners, an ammunition distribution company in Tennessee and they were intended to be sold mostly online at his online store. There was no immediate comment from Wideners regarding this cargo. The federal prosecutors’ office in northern Chihuahua State said Bogan was being held on illegal weapons charges.
Spokesman Angel Torres said the driver said he had no goods to declare. Torres said a gamma-ray inspection of the truck’s cargo compartment revealed the presence of metal canisters holding the ammunition. He said the bullets were hidden under pallets in the floor.
Two calibers of ammunition were found, which can be fired by AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles, Mexican prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said it was the largest seizure of ammunition in Ciudad Juarez in recent memory.
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