2006−2007: Operation Wide Receiver and other probes

The suspicious sale of AR-15s led to Operation Wide Receiver.[SUP]
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The first known ATF "gunwalking" operation to Mexican drug cartels, named Operation Wide Receiver, began in early 2006 and ran into late 2007. Licensed dealer Mike Detty informed the ATF of a suspicious gun purchase that took place in February 2006 in
Tucson, Arizona. In March he was hired as a confidential informant working with the ATF's Tucson office, part of their Phoenix, Arizona field division.[SUP]
[23][/SUP] With the use of surveillance equipment, ATF agents monitored additional sales by Detty to straw purchasers. With assurance from ATF "that Mexican officials would be conducting surveillance or interdictions when guns got to the other side of the border",[SUP]
[24][/SUP] Detty would sell a total of about 450 guns during the operation.[SUP]
[22][/SUP] These included
AR-15s,
AK-47s and Colt .38s. The vast majority of the guns were eventually lost as they moved into Mexico.[SUP]
[7][/SUP][SUP]
[23][/SUP][SUP]
[25][/SUP]
At the time, under the
Bush administration Department of Justice (DOJ), no arrests or indictments were made. After President
Barack Obama took office in 2009, the DOJ reviewed Wide Receiver and found that guns had been allowed into the hands of suspected gun traffickers. Indictments began in 2010, over three years after Wide Receiver concluded. As of October 4, 2011, nine people had been charged with making false statements in acquisition of firearms and illicit transfer, shipment or delivery of firearms.[SUP]
[18][/SUP] As of November, charges against one defendant had been dropped; five of them had pled guilty, and one had been sentenced to one year and one day in prison. Two of them remained fugitives.[SUP]
[23]
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