Ex-ATF agent: Ammo load should have been stopped

From the El Paso Times - By Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera - In light of Tuesday's arrest in Juárez of a U.S. trucker with 268,000 rounds of ammunition, a former agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives questioned the current safeguards at the U.S. side of the border to prevent similar contraband moving southbound. Jabin Akeem Bogan, 27, was detained Tuesday afternoon by Mexican federal customs officers at the Bridge of the Americas with the cargo. His employer and others have come out in his defense, saying the ammunitions were actually headed to Phoenix and that Bogan ended up in Mexico by accident. Regardless of Bogan's intentions, René Jáquez, former assistant country attaché in Juárez with the ATF, said that U.S. customs officers should have intercepted the cargo. "In my opinion, the real question to ask is how is it that our customs agents with all heightened security were able to miss this type of shipment going into Mexico? How was it that this truck was able to get into Mexico with all those ammo?" he said. And if the cargo was indeed legitimate, Jáquez said, U.S. customs officers should have been able to see the ammunitions, check the paperwork and steer the driver in the right direction. "If they would have opened the door they would have seen the ammunition," he said. Read more
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