ICE agents conducted surveillance on ATF agent - DOH!

[The Straight Story]

Agencies join forces to stop arms trafficking to Mexico
By Katherine McIntire Peters [e-mail] December 4, 2009

U.S. officials estimate that more than 90 percent of the cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines that enter the United States are funneled through Mexico across the Southwest border.

A less frequently cited figure is equally alarming to anyone living south of the border: Ninety percent of the weapons seized from the drug cartels by Mexican authorities are traced to the United States. While the cartels are moving drugs north, arms traffickers are moving guns south. It's a symbiotic relationship that threatens security in both countries.

As drug-related violence has soared in Mexico, where President Felipe Calderón's government has cracked down on the cartels, the relationship between guns and drugs is getting a lot more attention in Washington. Administration officials have emphasized the importance of stopping the outbound flow of guns and cash to Mexican drug trafficking organizations. "Clearly the money and weapons are just as important to the cartels, if not more important, than the drugs," says Gil Kerlikowske, the White House director of national drug control policy. "Of course, the purpose of the whole enterprise for the cartels is to garner profits and power; drugs are just a means to those ends."

...

A Government Accountability Office report released in June paints a picture of dysfunctional organizations that sometimes operate more like Keystone Kops than skilled law enforcement. In one case GAO cited, ICE agents conducted surveillance on an individual at a gun show who turned out to be an undercover ATF agent working an investigation. In another incident, ATF agents set up a controlled delivery in a sting operation but neglected to tell ICE officials, jeopardizing lives and risking that the weapons would fall into the wrong hands. GAO found that officials at both agencies sometimes refused to share key documents or information on investigations in retaliation for perceived slights.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=44174&dcn=todaysnews