A gun sold illegally “off-book” by a Phoenix gun owner as part of Operation Fast and Furious was used in the November terror attack in Paris, a source told Judicial Watch.
An agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) filed a Report of Investigation (ROI), tracking a gun used in the Paris attacks to a Phoenix gun owner who sold it illegally, the source said.
The investigation traced the ownership history of the gun using a 4473 form, which documents, among other things, the gun’s serial number.
The Phoenix gun owner whom the weapon was traced back to had two previous federal firearms violations, one for selling a weapon illegally and another for possessing an unregistered automatic weapon.
Despite the two previous violations, no law enforcement action was taken against the owner. Instead, “ATF leaders went out of their way to keep the information under the radar and ensure that the gun owner’s identity was ‘kept quiet,’” according to law enforcement sources.
“Agents were told, in the process of taking the fully auto, not to anger the seller to prevent him from going public,” a veteran law enforcement official said.
The ATF, under the auspices of Operation Fast and Furious, convinced straw purchasers to sell weapons to arms traffickers, who then sold the guns to Mexican drug cartels. The cartels, in turn, sold many of the weapons to contacts in the Middle East.
United States Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered by two men who used weapons acquired through Fast and Furious.
