By Lana Ferguson
https://www.dallasnews.com/
Five people were arrested Wednesday in South Texas for allegedly trafficking military-grade firearms throughout the state to a drug cartel in Mexico, according to officials.
The arrests were made in Laredo, Hebbronville and Falls City, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas said in a Monday news release.
Gerardo Rafael Perez, 23, of Laredo, is accused of acquiring more than 100 firearms throughout Texas to be smuggled across the border and delivered to a drug trafficking cartel in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico, according to court documents.
Perez’s organization allegedly used multiple people, including co-defendants Francisco Alejandro Benavides, 23, and Mark Anthony Trevino Jr., 24, to procure the firearms throughout the Lone Star State. The firearms were acquired from both unlicensed dealers and federal firearms licensees, where the purchasers would make “false representations to secure the firearms.”
Luis Matias Leal, 30, is accused of providing cash and instructions to facilitate the crimes while Antonio Osiel Casarez, 26, smuggled the guns into Mexico and returned to the U.S. with bulk cash, the release says.
The five men were named in a superseding indictment on March 6 and all arrested on March 20.
They all face one count each of conspiracy to traffic firearms and conspiracy to straw purchase firearms, the maximum penalty for each charge is 15 and 25 years respectively.
Perez, Casarez, Leal, and Benavides also face one count of conspiracy to smuggle goods from the United States, which is punishable with up to five years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to possess firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, which carries a punishment of up to 20 years imprisonment.
Perez faces two additional firearms trafficking charges.
Leal, Benavides and Trevino are also charged with falsifying information when buying a firearm, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment; and an additional count of straw purchasing.
Three other co-defendants — Jose Emigdio Q. Mendoza, Gerardo Antonio Ibarra Jr. and Gerardo Corona, Jr. — were named in an earlier indictment and arrested last year.
Mendoza allegedly sold firearms without a license, including selling military-grade weapons to members of Perez’s conspiracy. He’s accused of selling as many as 22 firearms to co-conspirators between December 2022 and March 2023, receiving more than $169,000, according to the release.
Ibarra and Corona are accused of acting as straw purchasers.
The high-powered firearms allegedly acquired by Perez’s organization included FNH SCAR rifles, Barrett .50 caliber rifles, FNH M294S rifles and M1919 rifles.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Homeland Security Investigations are investigating the case. The defendants will be tried in federal court.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
