Well, this isn’t the kind of story that you read every day. It’s actually rather crazy.
One would think that anyone who is trying to enter a country seeking asylum is there to try to find a way to live a peaceful life and that they’re trying to escape persecution in their previous country.
Those are respectable goals, and most countries have rules allowing people actually seeking asylum to gain refuge so that they aren’t sent back to persecution in that previous country.
But some “asylum seekers” that law enforcement in the U.S. came across tried to pull one of the gutsiest (and disturbing) stunts that I’ve come across recently. Candace Hathaway writes,
Several “asylum seekers,” believed to be connected to a Mexican drug cartel, were reportedly caught transporting nearly 30,000 rounds of ammunition in Arizona.
A multi-agency investigation in mid-January led to the seizure of 10,000 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition and 19,640 rounds of 7.62×39 ammunition from two vehicles traveling on Interstate 10.
Now, for those who are unfamiliar with .50 caliber ammunition, I first heard .50 described this way: “It’s for when you need to hit the robber behind the refrigerator… in your neighbor’s house.”
10,000 rounds of that and nearly 20,000 rounds of 7.62 isn’t a small haul, and most people, even gun enthusiasts, aren’t transporting that much ammunition on a normal everyday outing. Maybe a special event like a competition or the like, but how many “asylum seekers” are here looking to start a new life as a competitive shooter?
Hathaway continues:
While it has not yet been confirmed, authorities suspect the large ammunition haul is tied to a Mexican drug cartel.
Bernard Zapor, a retired ATF special agent in charge, told KSAZ-TV, “One thing for sure is that U.S. ammunition is a massively sought commodity in Mexico. It is priceless.”
“There’s a couple of things that are very interesting about this: the way that it was being transported, it wasn’t concealed from the photographs of the arrests. It was very blatantly just stored in an SUV, which indicates to me that they probably had the crossing into Mexico completely arranged,” Zapor said.
And the idea that there was an arrangement already in place to get this ammunition across the boarder has some scary implications, too, when you’re talking about drug cartels being involved.
It could be interesting to see what else an investigation into this situation turns up.