By Brady McCombs
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

GREEN VALLEY — Sgt. David Rodriguez can't keep his eyes on the road ahead.

Driving up and down Interstate 19 and throughout the Green Valley area, his gaze darts from a laptop computer in his patrol vehicle to the cars, trucks and semis that speed past him or linger behind him. He speeds up, slows down or flips around, pulling close enough to read a license plate.

He faces a daunting task — he's trying to sniff out a car heading south to Mexico with smuggled guns, ammunition or cash.

"There is no vehicle that has a big neon sign that says, 'Guns and cash here,' " said Rodriguez, a supervisor in the nearly two-year-old Border Crime Unit. "It's not as easy as you might think."

He and the 13 other deputies in the Pima County sheriff's Border Crime Unit focus primarily on drugs and criminals heading north — and the crime they bring with them. But this afternoon shift is all about stopping those things from heading south into Mexico.

Concern about southbound smuggling has soared along with raging drug wars in Mexico, which are being fought mostly with weapons smuggled from the United States.

More than 6,000 people were killed in Mexico last year in battles between cartels and law enforcement, including a record 116 in the once-quiet border city of Nogales, Sonora, just an hour's drive from Tucson. Of the more than 7,700 weapons recovered from those crimes, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) traced 90 percent back to this country.

That's largely because Mexican laws strictly regulate the possession of firearms, making it easier to buy guns here and take them south.

To fight the problem, the White House unveiled a new border security plan last week to send hundreds of additional agents and a bevy of new equipment to the border to fight weapons trafficking, which was an afterthought in the drug war until the past few years.

Among other things, the plan doubles the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents assigned to border task forces, to 190 from 95; sends 100 Border Patrol agents to ports of entry to augment outbound inspections; relocates 100 people to the ATF's Houston office; creates 16 new Drug Enforcement Administration positions in border offices; and establishes an FBI intelligence group.

New equipment going to the ports includes high-tech screening devices, K-9s that can detect weapons and cash, and upgraded license-plate readers.

The unprecedented influx of resources will give a much-needed boost to law enforcement agencies trying to stem the flow, say analysts and officials who applaud the plan. But, they admit that no one should expect weapons traffickers to be put out of business anytime soon.

"This is a major effort with guns moving across the border and even back across the border many times a day," said Susan Ginsburg, member of the 9/11 Commission and director of the mobility and security program at the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute, a centrist think tank. "It will take some time to have an impact."

Steady southbound trickle

Halting the steady southbound trickle of weapons that fuel the deadly and powerful Mexican drug cartels has never been easy — not for the Border Crime Unit, the ATF, ICE or any other agency.

The border remains wide open in many areas, smugglers are highly motivated and well-funded, and there never seem to be enough agents and officers.

"The border is very porous and there are lots of ways into Mexico and lots of ways out of Mexico," said Lt. Jeff Palmer, who oversees the Pima County sheriff's Border Crime Unit.

There are no southbound inspection stations on highways, meaning seizures usually come from tips — or luck.

Guns are usually moved in small shipments of three to five guns in a practice often referred to as "ant-trafficking," said Bill Newell, ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix office.

Smugglers often conceal weapons like they do drugs. In a recent traffic stop on a truck heading south on Arizona 85 near Ajo, Border Patrol agents discovered seven assault rifles, two semiautomatic handguns, one rifle and several thousand rounds of ammunition under clothing inside an ice chest.

The goal of the new emphasis on southbound traffic is to slow the flow and, most importantly, make it hard for criminals to get their hands on weapons, ATF special agent Newell said.

"The guns are arming very violent criminals who are intent on continuing the flow of drugs into the United States," Newell said. "If we deny criminals access to firearms, then we hopefully have an impact on the drug trade."

During the recent shift by the Border Crime Unit, deputies found a semiautomatic handgun likely left behind by drug runners in the hills outside of Green Valley, but Rodriguez's highway patrols came up empty. Since joining the unit in November 2007, he's yet to find a smuggled weapon.

Since the start of 2008, the unit has seized more than 13,000 pounds of marijuana, 71 vehicles and referred 661 illegal immigrants to Border Patrol. Guns, however, are more elusive: they've seized just 30 in that time.

"Sometimes we get lucky and sometimes we do not," Palmer said. "The most we can hope to do is be an obstacle and a deterrent."

Northbound traffic watch

Until now, the emphasis has been largely on traffic heading into the United States — not out of it. The U.S. Border Patrol does not routinely conduct southbound inspections but sometimes finds weapons during its work, said spokesman Rob Daniels. From Oct. 1 through February, agents in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector seized 21 weapons, compared to 88 in all of fiscal 2008.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have the authority to inspect anybody leaving through the ports but conduct only intermittent southbound inspections because their top priority remains inspecting traffic entering the country, said spokeswoman Bonnie Arellano.

Mexican customs officers stop vehicles only if an arbitrary stoplight blinks green. In Nogales, they inspect about 10 percent of vehicles, said Hector Garza, administrator for Mexican customs in Nogales. From 2004-2008 at the Nogales port, Mexican customs officers seized 400 guns.

But, as in the United States, the raging violence has prompted Mexican officials to modernize their inspection system. They have begun to send license-plate readers and other equipment to ports and plan to increase the percentage of people inspected, he said. The changes could take effect in Nogales as soon as this summer.

"The old system isn't bad, but we have to adapt to the reality our country is living," Garza said in Spanish. "This might slow down the flow of traffic but it's in the best interest of our citizens."

The White House plan shows that U.S. officials recognize that stopping firearms trafficking is a shared responsibility. That's a huge first step, Garza said. "It is a problem that affects the United States as much as Mexico," he said. "It's an international problem."

The border states are the primary sources. Texas leads, followed by Arizona and California. "Straw purchases"

The ATF struggles to stop "straw purchases," guns bought from licensed gun dealers at stores or gun shows and then sold to somebody buying for the cartels, who avoids being traced back to the purchase. At least 90 percent of guns recovered in Mexico that are traced to Arizona were bought that way, ATF says.

The purchase is illegal for the buyer — and can bring a felony conviction sentence of 10 years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000. But it is not an illegal sale as long the purchaser passes a criminal background check and fills out an ATF form. That means ATF must rely on gun dealers being cautious, vigilant and in some cases, choosing morals over money.

Through its Project Gunrunner, the agency distributes brochures to gun dealers with tips on how to spot a potential buyer for the cartels. The program's aim is to deny criminals access to weapons through enforcement, industry outreach and training.

ATF also has a program called "Don't lie for the other guy," aimed at discouraging people willing to serve as middlemen.

"We're trying to educate people saying, 'Listen guy, yes, you might make $100, but the gun that you bought for this guy might very well be used to kill someone,' " Newell said.

The agency intends to push for more tracing of weapons as well.

In Mexico, officials traced 7,743 guns used in crimes in fiscal 2008, up from 3,312 guns the year before. Through the first five months of fiscal 2009, they've traced 7,500 guns, putting it on pace to double for the third consecutive year, he said.

Tracing provides invaluable information that often leads to arrests and helps contribute to an understanding of the how the guns are purchased and moved.

"If you don't do that, you can't connect those dots," Newell said.

Any long-term plans to stop firearms trafficking must also include laws to close what is known as the "gun-show loophole," Ginsburg said. Now, private gun sellers, many of whom frequent the estimated 2,000-5,000 gun shows held each year across the country, do not have to follow the rules that apply to licensed gun dealers.

"There won't be a record of it so the firearm can't be traced if it's used in a crime," Ginsburg said.

Specific intelligence

The key to slowing firearms trafficking is attacking the organizations through investigations, said Rick Crocker, ICE deputy special agent in charge in Tucson.

"If we're out there and we can provide them specific intelligence, it leads to specific targeting and your chances of success are greatly enhanced," Crocker said.

Immigration and Custom Enforcement leads 11 Border Enforcement Security Task Forces, known as BEST, along the Southwest border — including one in Tucson that brings together nine law enforcement agencies and Mexican officials.

They conduct investigations of people or organizations that, if successful, conclude with search warrants at residences or southbound inspections by Customs and Border Protection officers at the ports.

Since its inception in March 2006, Crocker said the Tucson task force has weakened or dismantled eight weapons-smuggling organizations, made 35 criminal arrests on weapons charges, seized more than $4.6 million in U.S. currency, recovered 32,129 rounds of ammunition and 259 weapons, including AK-47s, AR-15s and sniper rifles.

He doesn't know how many, if any, additional agents Tucson will receive from the White House plan but it will be boost wherever they go.

"We'll be able to go after that many more organizations," Crocker said…

By the numbers

• 109,000 federal firearms licensees in the U.S. in 2007
  
• 6,700 federal firearms licenses in the four border states in 2009
  
• 1,884 federal firearms licenses along the border inspected in 2008 under the Project Gunrunner program
  
• 7,743 guns recovered in Mexico and traced by ATF in fiscal 2008, up from 3,312 guns in fiscal 2007
  
• 90 percent of traceable firearms recovered in Mexico that originated in the United States

SOURCE: ATF