EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Federal agents have arrested three Texas men for allegedly purchasing high-powered firearms at gun shows on behalf of a Mexican drug cartel.
Tuesday’s arrest of Bobby Galvan, Brandon Casey Kunze and Matthew Wade Patterson are part of a wider, years-long investigation by at least three federal agencies of the purchase and illegal export of firearms from Texas to a drug trafficking organization based in Mexico.
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Court documents show the Bureau of Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI identified an organizer of “straw purchases” for the cartel after illegally exported weapons were seized at the Eagle Pass, Texas, port of entry and from crime scenes in Mexico.
Documents identify the alleged firearms trafficker as Alfredo Jaimes Jaimes of Mexico. The investigation led them to the August 2023 purchase of an AK-47 style rifle by Galvan. Mexican authorities seized the 7.62-caliber rifle in Mexico a few months later.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Eagle Pass seized another 7.62-caliber rifle on May 2024 allegedly purchased by Galvan at a gun show in San Marcos, Texas…