2009
- October 26. Department of Justice officials meet to discuss the problem of mounting violence in Mexico. They decide to change strategy, aiming to eliminate gun-trafficking pipelines. There is no mention of “gunwalking” during the meeting.
- November. The operation is launched. It is designed and run by the ATF Phoenix field office.
- In a gunwalking operation, guns bought by straw purchasers, individuals in America with clean records, for drug cartels are allowed to “walk” across the border into Mexico, instead of being seized by ATF agents.
- The stated aim is for ATF agents to follow the paths of guns from straw purchasers through middlemen and into the hierarchy of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. The tracked weapons are to be used as evidence to pin larger crimes against the cartel as they work to break it up or at least eliminate the gun-trafficking routes. According to whistleblowers and investigators, however, agents never made the attempt to actually trace the guns.
Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/304215/fast-and-furious-timeline-nro-staff
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