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Federal authorities announced Wednesday the raid of a dozen suspected members of a San Antonio-based gun trafficking ring.
Robert Topper, chief of ATF operations in San Antonio, said the raid took place Tuesday. One alleged suspect was shot and killed near Loop 410 and Starcrest in the Northeast area. All of the arrests were local, except for one in McAllen.
“Yesterday’s operation was the culmination of a year-long investigation into an organization of individuals who were trafficking stolen firearms, machine guns and machine gun conversion devices within San Antonio and with the intent to traffic the firearms into Mexico,” Topper said.
Some 200 firearms were also seized, including 14 machine guns. Topper declined to explain how the gang members were linked to the buyers of stolen weapons.
Jaime Esparza, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said many of the guns trafficked by criminals, like those seized Monday, are stolen from vehicles. He said 1,100 guns have been stolen from the vehicles of San Antonio-area residents so far this year.
“Secure your vehicles. Do not allow a criminal to use his firearm, his pistol, to commit other crimes,” Esparza explained.
Six of the confiscated weapons, including three machine guns, were linked to the San Antonio shootings.
When Esparza and Topper were asked whether the state’s lax gun laws are responsible for an epidemic of guns stolen from vehicles, neither directly addressed the question.
But Esparza said 30,000 guns have been stolen from the vehicles of Texans living in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin since 2020. He also confirmed that there is no law in Texas holding a gun owner responsible for the theft of one of these items from their vehicle.
He also said many of the stolen firearms can be converted into machine guns with simple conversion kits that are easy to buy and that law enforcement calls “push-buttons or lever-action.” A semi-automatic pistol becomes a fully automatic gun with the pull of the trigger.
The 12 individuals face between five and 15 years in prison on various weapons-related charges.
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