ATF Gun-Running Scandal

Between 2009 and 2011, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) ran a series of sting operations over the southern border. In what became known as Operation Fast and Furious, the ATF purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them. Guns tracked by the ATF were found at crime scenes on both sides of the Southern Border and the scene of United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder in December 2010. The gun-running program assisted in 170 crimes in Mexico alone.