PHOENIX — Police have arrested an American man who allegedly smuggled parts for as many as 2,000 grenades into Mexico for drug cartels. A year ago, he was released by U.S. agents who stopped him at the border for having more than a hundred grenade parts.
While a Department of Justice official said the case will be added to the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious, a flawed effort by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to target gun-trafficking networks on the Mexican border, there is a twist: in the Jean Batiste Kingery case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, not ATF, appeared to be responsible for letting him walk.
In a letter to congressional committees investigating Fast and Furious, Luciano Cerasi, general counsel for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said an ATF agent “practically begged” a prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix for permission to arrest Kingery but was denied, according to Cerasi.
But a lead prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office wasn’t interested in pressing charges because he viewed the grenade parts as novelty items.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix deferred comment to Washington, and the prosecutor, Emory Hurley, did not respond to a request for comment.
