Ex-army major charged with trafficking guns
A former Army major and seven others have been charged in San Antonio with conspiring to traffic more than 100 military-style rifles from Texas to a drug cartel in Mexico.
Five of the defendants were arrested last week in Laredo, Hebbronville and Falls City, while the rest were already in custody on gun charges as part of an investigation that culminated in a new, superseding federal indictment unsealed last week in San Antonio’s federal court.
U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza identified the five picked up last week as Gerardo Rafael “Jerry” Perez Jr., 23; Francisco Alejandro “Frankie” Benavides, 23; Mark Anthony Trevino Jr., 24; Luis Matias Leal, 30, also known as “Wicho,” “Poncho” and “El Tio”; and Antonio Osiel Casarez, 26.
The three defendants already in custody are Jose Emigdio Q. Mendoza, the onetime Army major; Gerardo Antonio Ibarra Jr.; and Gerardo Corona Jr. They were charged over the past year in an earlier version of the indictment.
Perez allegedly coordinated the gun purchases from his hometown of Laredo.
The firearms were then smuggled across the border and delivered to the Cartel del Noreste in Nuevo Laredo in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, according to court documents.
The ring used straw purchasers — U.S. citizens with no criminal records — who included Benavides, Trevino Jr., Ibarra and Corona to buy firearms from sources across Texas. The buyers were provided with cartel cash for the purchases.
Court filings allege that the organization bought guns from either unlicensed or licensed dealers of firearms, its straw buyers falsely claiming they were purchasing the guns for themselves.
Leal is alleged to have provided cash and instructions to carry out the conspiracy, while Casarez smuggled the firearms into Mexico and returned to the United States with cash for more gun buys.
Perez, Casarez, Leal, Benavides and Trevino were all named in a superseding indictment filed March 6. They were arrested Wednesday.
All five are charged with one count of conspiracy to traffic firearms, which carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to straw-purchase firearms, with a maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment.
Perez, Casarez, Leal, and Benavides are also charged with one count of conspiracy to smuggle goods from the United States, which a carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to possess firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, for up to 20 years imprisonment.
Perez faces two additional firearms trafficking charges.
Leal, Benavides, and Trevino also are charged with falsifying information when buying a firearm, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment, and an additional count of straw purchasing.
All of the charges also carry a fine up to $250,000.
Mendoza, who allegedly bought and sold firearms without a license, is accused of selling military-grade weapons to several of the other defendants, court records said.
The firearms in the case included FNH SCAR rifles, Barrett .50 caliber rifles, FNH M294S rifles, and M1919 rifles, according to a news release issued Monday by Esparza, the U.S. attorney for the San Antonio-based Western District of Texas.
In a criminal complaint filed against Mendoza, federal agents said “these weapons are highly sought after by Mexican cartels and firearm trafficking organizations for their firepower and as a status symbol.”
Mendoza is alleged to have sold at least 22 of the rifles to his co-defendants in late 2022 and early 2023, and received approximately $169,900 — which included a markup from the retail price of the guns that allowed him to make a profit.
Mendoza was arrested in San Antonio on March 11, 2023. Ibarra and Corona were arrested in September and October 2023.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Homeland Security Investigations are investigating the case.