Drug lord’s assault rifle traced to Texan
SAN ANTONIO — An assault rifle seized during the July arrest of one of Mexico’s most violent drug lords — Miguel Angel “Z-40” Treviño Morales — has been traced to a gun seller whose San Antonio-area home was searched last week and netted what authorities said was a “small arsenal.”
The seller, Manuel “Manny” Rodriguez, an ex-con who served almost four years in a federal prison for selling machine guns and other firearms without a license in California, had obtained the rifle from a “cooperating citizen” in San Antonio, then resold it at a gun show.
It then made its way south of the border to the Zetas.
“This gun was recovered from Miguel Treviño, Z-40, along with other firearms and some cash during his arrest,” ATF special agent Christopher Benavides testified at a bail hearing for Rodriguez. “Z-40 was head of the Zetas at the time.”
In the raid last week, agents found more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 76 guns and $ 15,000 in cash at Rodriguez’s home in the community of Spring Branch. ‘Gun show loophole’
Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Homeland Security Investigations also found that some of Rodriguez’s customers were supplying the Zetas with assault rifles and were specifi- cally seeking sellers like Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, agents found, had been selling guns from various tables at gun shows by exploiting the so-called “gun show loophole.”
By posing as a private seller disposing of his “personal” collection, he was circumventing rules that required him to get a license and to conduct background checks on his buyers, authorities contend. And, because he is a felon, Rodriguez should not have had guns in the first place, they argue.
He is charged, for the moment, with being a felon in possession of a firearm.
“A cooperating witness indicated he and others would go to Manuel Rodriguez and his son to buy AK-47s from them,” Benavides testified. “They would then give (the weapons) to others who would smuggle them to the Zetas.”
When Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hulings asked if that was the only link to the Zetas that agents found, Benavides dropped the bombshell.
Benavides said he and another agent traced a “Century Arms AK47 variant” recovered during Z-40’s arrest in Mexico to the unnamed San Antonio man.
That person, Benavides said, had sold the gun to Rodriguez’s son, and Rodriguez is believed to have sold it to someone else at one of the gun shows. ‘Z-40’ in Mexican jail
In July, a Mexican navy helicopter tracked the 40-year-old Zetas leader, known by his radio call sign “El 40,” “Z-40” “Cuarenta” and other variants of the number in Spanish, on a rural road near the Texas line outside Nuevo Laredo. He was arrested and is being held in a Mexican jail.
Under cross-examination by Rodriguez’s lawyer, Benavides said he had no evidence that Rodriguez knew that any of his guns would wind up in the hands of the Zetas or make their way to its leader, who had reportedly ordered hits in Laredo and whose bloodthirstiness was known on both sides of the border.
During an investigation that lasted several months, agents watched, then videotaped Rodriguez at the gun shows in San Antonio and Austin. In an undercover sting, an agent bought an Intratec 9mm from Rodriguez for $650 at an Austin gun show, Benavides said.
During last week’s raid, agents intercepted Rodriguez as he and his son left home towing a trailer to another gun show, Benavides said. There were numerous guns in the trailer, and several more were found in the home — almost half of them assault-style rifles — along with ammo and a safe with $ 15,000, Benavides testified.