The Untold Story Behind The Fast And Furious Scandal

Who are the human faces of the U.S. government's botched "Fast and Furious" gun-walking operation?

Often lost amid the rancor in Washington are the stories of dozens of people killed by guns that flowed south as part of the undercover operation, and later slipped out of view from U.S. officials. Univision's Investigative Unit (Univision Investiga) has identified massacres committed using guns from the ATF operation, including the killing of 16 young people attending a party in a residential area of Ciudad Juárez in January of 2010.

Additional guns, previously unreported by congressional investigators, found their way into the hands of drug traffickers across Latin America in countries such as, Honduras and Colombia, as well as the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. A person familiar with the recent congressional hearings called Univision's findings "the holy grail" that Congress had been searching for.

Get the full story on "Fast and Furious" on a special edition of Univision's "Aquí y Ahora" (Here and Now) this Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT (6 p.m. Central), which will be aired with closed captioning in English.

Click to expand...

How many women in leotards did the investigative piece involve?

Click to expand...

Loki97 said:

The famous Univision Investigative Unit! Maybe they should devote their time to investigating their own corrupt government before leveling accusations at one of their country's biggest supporters. How many women in leotards did the investigative piece involve?

Click to expand...

Loki97 said:

The famous Univision Investigative Unit! Maybe they should devote their time to investigating their own corrupt government before leveling accusations at one of their country's biggest supporters. How many women in leotards did the investigative piece involve?

Click to expand...

jerry7 said:

What's up with Univision? Where'd they find the honest, old fashioned investigative reporters? If they keep this up they might realize their goal of being the top rated network within 5 years.

Click to expand...

The Spanish language television news network Univision unleashed a bombshell investigative report on Operation Fast and Furious Sunday evening, finding that in January 2010 drug cartel hit men slaughtered students with weapons the United States government allowed to flow to them across the Mexican border.

“On January 30, 2010, a commando of at least 20 hit men parked themselves outside a birthday party of high school and college students in Villas de Salvarcar, Ciudad Juarez,” according to a version of the Univision report in English, on the ABC News website.

“Near midnight, the assassins, later identified as hired guns for the Mexican cartel La Linea, broke into a one-story house and opened fire on a gathering of nearly 60 teenagers. Outside, lookouts gunned down a screaming neighbor and several students who had managed to escape. Fourteen young men and women were killed, and 12 more were wounded before the hit men finally fled.”

Citing a Mexican Army document it obtained and published, Univision reported that “[t]hree of the high caliber weapons fired that night in Villas de Salvarcar were linked to a gun tracing operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).”

The “massacre,” as Univision described it, was not the only bombshell the network unveiled in its Sunday evening report.

“Univision News identified a total of 57 more previously unreported firearms that were bought by straw purchasers monitored by ATF during Operation Fast and Furious, and then recovered in Mexico in sites related to murders, kidnappings, and at least one other massacre,” the Univision report reads.

The network also uncovered another Fast and Furious weapons “massacre.” On September 2, 2009, 18 young men were killed at “El Aliviane, a rehabilitation center in Ciudad Juarez,” according to the report.

Click to expand...

The English-language translated transcript of Spanish-language television news network Univision’s special report on Operation Fast and Furious shows that drug cartel leaders orchestrated a hit on innocent civilian teenagers using weapons they got from President Barack Obama’s administration.

The human impact appears to have been lost in translation in the first wave of English-language pieces after the explosive new report.

“At 11:30, I was in the living room watching TV and the warning was a gunshot, nothing more. One gunshot,” Luz Davila told Univision, according to an English language transcript.

Davila’s children — 18-year-old Jose Luis Davila and 20-year-old Marco Davila — were next door at a birthday party with about 60 of their friends. “They had bought sodas, chips — the neighbors were going to make oranges with chilies for them, cracklings, everything,” their mother told Univision.

After that gunshot, Luz Davila said she knew something horrible happened to her children.

“I stood because it came to me and I said, ‘Something happened,’” Luz Davila told the network.

What had happened was Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, or “El Diego,” the onetime leader of the Juarez Cartel’s La Linea, sent his team to the birthday party to kill what he thought were members of the rival Sinaloa Cartel.

Click to expand...

When Mexican authorities took Juarez drug cartel carnage king Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez — better known as “El Diego” — into custody, he had weapons from Operation Fast and Furious on his person, the English-language transcript of the Spanish-language television network Univision’s special investigation into the scandal shows.

“According to investigations, ‘El Diego’ forms the link between this massacre and Fast and Furious,” an anchor read on air in Spanish Sunday evening, referring to two different mass killings drug cartel operatives used Fast and Furious weapons to conduct as Univision reported.

“When he [El Diego] was captured in Chihuahua in the summer of 2011, he was found with weapons that the American government had allowed to enter Mexico,” the anchor added.

Mexican authorities have alleged El Diego is responsible for the murders of at least 1,500 people in Juarez and Chihuaha City, Mexico, according to the El Paso Times.

Tracy Schmaler, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Eric Holder, has not responded to a request for comment in response to this revelation.

Click to expand...