An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen. Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico. We just knew it wasn't going to end well. There's just no way it could," Dodson said. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/03/eveningnews/main20039031.shtml
Some of these guns were apparently used in the shootout where a Border Patrol agent was killed. They were trying to arrest a crew that robbed drug smugglers, but were under orders to only fire bean bag rounds. The crew replied with AK47 fire, killing one agent. http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_681d29cf-845a-5aea-9f34-3837d70b8a31.html The ATF wanted to put onerous reporting requirements on gun shops but was knowingly allowing illegal guns to be smuggled into Mexico. The Washington Post ran a long multipart series trying to drum up anti-gun sentiment over smuggling to mexico. I wonder if they will even report this? I certainly haven't seen anything on it. I can't prove it obviously, but one explanation is the official explanation they were trying to build a bigger case, eventhough it meant allowing guns to go to thugs. Another explanation is that someone had been bribed to allow this to happen. I wonder which is more likely?