Paul: Hello, this is Paul Clinton with POLICE Magazine. This is the
monthly author's podcast with books by and for cops. We have a very
interesting book this month to discuss. It's called "Guns Across the
Border: How and Why the U.S. Government Smuggled Guns into Mexico: The
Inside Story". It was written by Mike Detty. In the book, Mike chronicles
his experience as a federally licensed firearms dealer in the Tucson area
and his role in these gun-walking sting operations and the flooding of guns
to Mexico.

Mike has been a contributor to POLICE Magazine. He's written some
great firearm reviews over the years. His business is
essentially selling rifles and other guns at gun shows in
Arizona. Mike, we're really pleased to have you on, and thanks
for joining us to talk about the book.

Mike: Thanks, Paul. It's a pleasure to join you, and thank you for
having me on.

Paul: Talk about this book and how it came about. You found yourself
in the cross-hairs, so to speak, of a very ill-fated,
eventually, federal gun operation. Talk a little bit about how
you got involved in this from the beginning and how this got
started.

Mike: Sure. Historically, it is significant in that Operation Wide
Receiver, which was the case that I brought ATF into in 2006,
eventually morphed into Operation Fast and Furious, about two
and a half years later. The way it started was, as you
mentioned, I did gun shows for a living. I am an FFL holder, a
Federal Firearms Licensee. I sell AR-15s at Arizona gun shows.

I was approached by an individual who wanted to buy six AR-15 Lowers
from me. The next day, he came back and he asked if I would have
more sometime later in the month. I told him I had another 20 on
order that I expected the next week. His answer to me was, "I'll
take them all."

The sheer number that he wanted, and the fact that he was paying
cash, and the fact that he was a young Hispanic kid, made me
suspicious right off the bat. That happened on a Sunday. Monday
morning, I contacted my local ATF contact. He had me fax in the
paperwork, and the he called me back later in the day and asked
me if I could come down the following day and spend some time
talking with him.

That was really how Operation Wide Receiver began. There was a group
of young men in the Phoenix area that was buying AR-15 Lowers.
They were sending them to somebody in San Diego who was
purchasing the top ends of the rifles, 10 inch, which of course,
anything under 16 inch barrel length is illegal, but it didn't
matter to them, because they were pretty mixed up in doing
illegal stuff anyway.

Anyhow, they would complete these firearms by pinning on a short top
end, and then taking them across the border into Tijuana for the
Felix Arellano Cartel. That was how Operation Wide Receiver
started. It kind of went through some twists and turns, but by
the time were finished a year and a half had gone by. I think
we'd sold weapons to five different cartels.

Paul: Before we get into the details of this, talk a little bit about
where federal law enforcement was coming from and their goals in
your mind, or what they said to you about these operations.
They've been termed "gun-walking operations" and I guess these
operations would fall under this Project Gunrunner. What was the
original goal of this operation, as far as you understood?

Mike: Project Gunrunner was a project to stem the flow of illegal
guns into Mexico. It involved saturating the border states with
more ATF agents and more funding to prevent that from happening.
Operation Wide Receiver, when I first got involved and they
first started looking at these characters I was selling to, and
by the way, after that initial purchase, I didn't sell anything
to these people without prior knowledge of ATF and without them
specifically asking them to do this at their behest, to further
the investigation. I just want to make that clear. It wasn't as
if I did something, and then, "Oh, I'd better let them know,"
just so I don't get in trouble.

Paul: I guess the idea is that, this has always been the case, that
the drugs come from Mexico and the guns and the ammunition go to
Mexico. So the ATF and the federal government was becoming more
and more concerned about guns that cartel operators were
purchasing here in the border states and taking to Mexico to use
in this violent cartel drug war, right?

Mike: That's correct. That was correct. The first meeting that I had
with these ATF people here in Tucson, I was told that I would
have a chance to help them take out a powerful drug cartel. I'm
smart enough to know the implications of that.

Paul: Yeah. That sounds good, actually. It sounds like a noble goal.

Mike: Being a patriot, I was eager to help them. It just didn't turn
out the way it was outlined to me. What happened to be the goal,
we never came close to achieving that goal. If you read the
book, I think there was something far more insidious going on
than trying to take out a drug cartel.

Paul: Part of, I think, at least what we've heard said publicly from
the ATF, and obviously this was a huge scandal that resulted in
congressional hearings, and of course the deaths of two federal
agents, speaking of course of border patrol agent Brian Terry,
and also ICE special agent Jamie Zapata. Guns that apparently
were sold through these sting operations were found at both of
those crime scenes.

Mike: Correct.

Paul: Right.

Mike: All three of those guns were from Fast and Furious, although
there is nothing that would prove any of the guns from Wide
Receiver showing up at future crime scenes. We know that they've
shown up at crime scenes in Mexico. Fortunately, nothing has
been found here in the United States.

Paul: The critique of the ATF through all this has been, why didn't
you track the guns? Was there some goal early on to either
attach some type a micro-tracker or microchip to the gun? Was
there any effort early on by them to track these guns?

Mike: No. I do mention in the book, it's been reported in mainstream
press that under President Bush things were done more
responsibly. They tracked the guns they were working with
Mexican officials. That's hogwash. None of that's true. There
was one attempt to put a tracking device in a rifle during
operation receiver, and it failed miserably. It was never
fielded, it was never talked about again.

The other thing, what I was told from the start, was that there was
ongoing cooperation with the Mexican authorities and that if
they didn't interdict the guns that at some point in time, they
knew where the guns were at, they were going to round them all
up, or most of them. I mean, nothing is 100%.

It was conveyed to me that the operation I was working was
multinational, meaning that the Mexican authorities were on
board with it, and that this was how they were going to take out
this cartel. That just proved to never be true.

The Inspector General's report that was issued last fall, it cites I
think three different phone conversations during the three years
I was involved with Operation Wide Receiver where they had
contacted Mexican authorities, but there was never any ongoing
coordination. There was no commitment by Mexican authorities to
follow these guns anywhere into Mexico. In fact, none of them
were ever tracked.

Paul: Wow. You mentioned that there were a couple of very interesting
anecdotes in the book of failed attempts by these agents to
follow and/or arrest these straw purchases and the buyers who
came to you to purchase these guns.

Mike: Sure. In fact, there was one event, I believe it was 50 .38
Super Pistols that one of these guys bough