Two Texas Residents Received Prison Time for Firearms Trafficking to Mexico
Jose Nino
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Two Texas men recently received prison sentences for the roles they played in firearms trafficking to Mexico.
“Traffickers in fully automatic firearms from the United States to Mexico aid in the cartels’ efforts to manufacture dangerous drugs and smuggle them into our country,” declared Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will do everything in its power to find and hold accountable the gun traffickers who are arming the cartels. I am grateful to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas and ATF for their outstanding work in both of these cases.”
“ATF cannot and will not stand by while ghost guns flow to Mexican cartels to support their violent and deadly crimes,” declared Director Steven Dettelbach of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “With our partners, ATF is working every day to catch the firearms traffickers, drug dealers and straw purchasers who arm those criminals with increasingly lethal weaponry, which includes machine guns. We will use every tool provided, including the new laws in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, to try to stop those arming the cartels.”
Jaime Jesus Esquivel, a resident of Laredo, received a 120 month prison sentence followed by 3 years of supervised release for possessing a machine gun, possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, and engaging in a conspiracy to possess intent to distribute cocaine. Esquivel pleaded guilty on June 6. He admitted to producing and illegally exporting fully automatic firearms to Mexico for drug cartels to later use.
Jose Abraham Nicanor, a resident of Houston, received a prison sentence of up to 60 months for the illegal purchase and trafficking of guns. A federal jury convicted Nicanor on May 11 on all 13 counts as charged after a trial that took three days. He also received a conviction for possessing a firearm after being previously slapped with a felony charge for armed robbery.
Throughout the undercover investigation, authorities carried out four controlled purchases of cocaine and fully automatic rifles. The weapons were so-called ghost guns, privately assembled firearms that don’t have any serial identification or industry marking. Esquivel built these weapons so that they can be distributed.
On top of that, Esquivel built the firearms from various components of combat weapons, which includes Colt M4 parts and a 3D-printed polymer AR-type drop-in auto sear or machine gun MGD conversion device. An MGCD II is any part designed and intended solely and exclusively for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun.
Law enforcement issued two search warrants and confiscated privately-assembled AR-type lower receivers, gun parts, gun manufacturing tools, 950 rounds of ammunition, a 7.62mm rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and a privately-assembled short-barrel fully automatic rifle without serial numbers or industry markings. Authorities also discovered methamphetamines, cocaine, and a 3D printer.
As a convicted felon, Esquivel is currently prohibited from owning firearms or ammunition.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, ATF, and Laredo Police Department were the main actors investigating the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Scott Bowling for the Southern District of Texas was the chief prosecutor of the case.
During the trial, the jury was informed that Nicanor hired two straw purchasers to purchase high-caliber rifles that drug trafficking organizations regularly use in their operations.
Testimony and evidence put forth at court demonstrated that a total of 94 firearms were connected to Nicanor’s straw purchasing organization. Mexican authorities subsequently recovered a good portion of the firearms that drug trafficking organizations possess.
The jury also heard that Nicanor rented a machine gun at a local gun range and posted a video of himself with the firearm to his social media. As a convicted felon, he is prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition per federal law.
The straw purchasers, James Paxton Jefferson and Alejandro Garcia, both Houston residents, pleaded guilty on a previous occasion and received sentences.
As long as the US maintains an open border, all manner of drug cartel activity will continue unimpeded. Until the border is secured, the US’s southern border with Mexico will be a conduit for all manner of social dysfunction.
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