Drug cartel used North Carolina home as stash site for gun smuggling, ATF says
A machine gun was among the 140 weapons seized when federal agents targeted a Lincoln County home suspected of being a drug cartel armory, according to The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
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Many of the firearms are believed to have been stolen, and could be linked to crimes in the region, federal officials said.
The location of the home was not revealed. Lincoln County is about a 35-mile drive northwest from uptown Charlotte.
“ATF received information that a Mexican cartel source had a large cache of weapons stored in the North Carolina area and was attempting to smuggle the firearms into Mexico on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel,” federal officials said in a July 2 news release.
“A search warrant was initiated, resulting in the seizure of 140 firearms, including two .50 caliber rifles and at least one machine gun. Investigators also recovered ammunition and evidence of … human trafficking.”
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The ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network is working to determine which weapons are stolen, and if they are linked to crimes, federal officials said.
“This investigation pulls the plug on an extremely dangerous firearms trafficking operation,” ATF Special Agent in Charge Alicia Jones said in the news release.
“The firearms the source planned to smuggle across the border would have fueled more violence from a dangerous cartel. To have those firearms in our custody is a major win for public safety on both sides of the border.”
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