High-Risk Hostage Encounters

Mike Detty, a one-time POLICE contributor, talks about "Guns Across the Border," a first-hand account of his involvement in an ATF "gun walking" operation that preceded Fast & Furious. As a firearms dealer, Detty sold guns to Mexican cartel operatives at the direction of ATF special agents in Arizona. Detty says he was motivated by patriotic duty, and betrayed by the agency he worked for.

Show the Guns Across the Border Podcast Transcription:

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 ...