The three-hour flights required to reach cartel rendezvous points did not leave much idle time to spot airplanes as they unloaded tons of cocaine to dugout canoes, which then paddled downriver beneath the jungle canopy to meet fast boats and submersibles at the coast for the trip north.
agents based in Mexico that they were kept in the dark about the operation, that they believed it was allowing guns to reach Mexican cartels, and that they were brushed off when they raised concerns.
The agents lost track of 2,000 guns, most of which probably reached Mexican drug cartels.
Seeking to build a bigger case against high-ranking gunrunners, agents did not move quickly against weapons obtained by low-level smugglers, and they lost track of 2,000 guns, most of which probably reached Mexican drug cartels.
Agents sometimes did not immediately seize guns purchased from low-level suspects when they had the chance, but instead tried to track them in an effort to identify kingpins; they lost track of hundreds of weapons, some of which reached Mexican drug cartels.
But they lost track of about 2,000 guns that probably reached a Mexican cartel.
Instead, shopkeepers in scores of communities have banded together and, like mini-cartels, reached an agreement among themselves to close at 6 p.m. on weekdays and 2 p.m. on Saturdays.
Under the agreement, reached in Algiers, cartel members would decide at the group's next formal meeting, on Nov. 30 in Vienna, on details of trimming production by up to 700,000 barrels a day, from a current level of just over 33 million barrels a day.
Many weapons are believed to have reached a Mexican drug cartel.
But they lost track of about 2,000 guns that probably reached a Mexican drug cartel.
