Reuters World News - Wisconsin to Mexico: A reporter’s journey tracing gun trafficking

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

Join investigative reporter Sarah Kinosian as she unravels a gun trafficking operation that stretched from Racine, Wisconsin to Mexico’s drug cartels. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Racine, Wisconsin is a small town situated on the edge of Lake Michigan, nestled between Chicago and Milwaukee. The garbage disposal was invented there, and it's most famous for factories, farming, and an extravagant, televised prom celebration. In 2018, prosecutors say this town became the unlikely source of gun trafficking to Mexico's drug cartels. Investigators say members of a local family, the Cobians, working with a cousin in Mexico, enlisted friends and relatives to buy military-grade guns in Racine. In this special episode, we follow one reporter's journey, unraveling a gun trafficking operation that spans from Main Street USA to one of the fiercest drug cartels in Mexico. I'm Christopher Waljeper in Chicago.

And I'm Sarah Kenosian in Mexico City. Sarah Kinocian is an investigative journalist for Reuters in Mexico. She spent the past year tracing how suburban Racine came to be identified by U.S. prosecutors as the source of high-calibre weapons for one of Mexico's top fentanyl trafficking gangs. Sarah, take us back to this incident in Halisco, Mexico, that started your reporting journey. Late in the afternoon on at the end in late May of 2018 the former attorney general of Halisco was leaving a Japanese restaurant and as he left bass gunman descended upon him and his bodyguard shot back and it started this broad daylight in the middle of the street

shootout on the streets of Guadalajara. Police arrived as the gunmen were trying to escape. They torched a bus. It ended up killing a 26-year-old woman and her eight-month-old son. Police were able to capture some of the gunmen, but not all. The armed men were part of an elite hit squad known as the Delta Group that reports to the head of Mexico's Halisco New Generation Cartel, run by Nemesio Osegera, better known as El Mancho. A couple weeks later, in their early hours,

a group of Mexican federal police officers gathered next to a cemetery in Guadalajara. In front was a safe house that they had associated with the Delta group. And from these handwritten notes that I was able to obtain, you could see that police officers kind of crept past this green Jeep Cherokee into the garage of this bright orange two-story house. And when they went inside, they apprehended someone who had, run upstairs trying to evade capture. But they also found several thousand rounds of ammunition, grenade launchers, and 50 cows. This is a weapon that weighs 30 pounds and is used by militaries

around the world because they are able to rip through armored vehicles. They can pulverize concrete walls, and they're the guns that are put on top of armored vehicles in modern warfare. Mexico is fairly strict gun laws. So to try and understand where these weapons came from, authorities traced all the weapons they found and found that the majority had come from the United States. But one in particular they found had come from an unlikely source 2,000 miles away. And how did you determine that Racine was at the center of all of this? I wanted to tell the story of U.S. guns in Mexico for a while.

It is an issue that is well covered because, as we mentioned, Mexico is very strict gun laws and the United States does not. And it's known that the majority of weapons that end up in Mexico come from the United States. And I was looking for a way to tell that story when I got a tip about a case out of Racine, Wisconsin. I started calling around sources when in late February this investigation, the indictment would be. came unsealed. And that gave me something to work with, something to go off of. In an indictment, they give as little information as possible. So I was trying to figure out, how do all of these people know each other? There were anonymous co-conspirators named in the indictment. And at that point, I realized I had to go to Racine to see if I could piece together what this trafficking network

looked like and why a 50 caliber from Racine, Wisconsin ended up. up in a safe house for a hit squad in Guadalajara, Mexico. Racing Wisconsin is this town that's tucked between Milwaukee and Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan. It's known for factories, farming, and extravagant televised prom celebration. What struck me was the amount of strip malls and SUVs. and churches that I saw kind of dotting every few blocks. Wisconsin has among the most bars per capita in the United States.

I went three seen, and I was trying to figure out how all of these names that had appeared on the unsealed indictment, and I had also obtained some documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. And a lot of names appeared in that document that had not, appeared in the indictment. And I was able to put together as much as I could from public information that I had Googled about where they lived, what they did, and what their phone numbers were, and as much information as I could possibly get on the internet about these people.

So I went in and I knew that the Cobian brothers had a construction company. I knew that their parents owned a bar. I knew what the bar looked like. I had spent weeks figuring out that two of the Cobian children were named in the indictment. And so I sort of had these broad outlines of how these people loosely fit together. But I didn't understand really who is this family, the Cobians? When did they get to Racine? What was their role in the community?

how all of these disparate names were related or connected and wondering how this arms trafficking cell in this small town in Wisconsin was able to send military-grade weapons to Mexico. So I started by trying to visit some of the gun stores that appeared in the indictment. Right. Okay. So take me to the gun store.

So at this point I had driven around to the gun stores that have been named in the indictment. They had all been closed except for one called the Shooter Sports Center in Racing, Wisconsin. And it was where the 50 caliber that had been found in the safe house in Guadalajara had been purchased. So I thought I'd visit and see what the deal was. The store looks like this looks like a bunker. The store is set on this grassy intersection. it's this one-story brick building that has this bunker-like feel. Inside, there's a shooting range that you can't even hear from outside.

On the outside, they have an archery range. And when you go in, it does look like a typical U.S. gun store. There are guns behind the counter. There's these glass cases where you can buy all different kinds of handguns. There's long-arm guns. There's ammo storage. I mean, wow, I just pulled it up on Google Maps, and you're right, it absolutely does look like a bunker. The first day I walked in and I told them that I was a reporter.

I was doing a story about 50 cows. I asked a couple of questions, but I was just kind of trying to get a feel for what the gun store felt like and see where it was located in relation to some of the addresses that I had found for. or people alleged to have been participating in this scheme. And I went back to the store several times and talked with the staff there. One guy in particular was four more special forces. He'd been put together a Barrett 50 cow that they had in the store so we could lift it up and get a feel for what this gun actually feels like to hold.

And we were also able to verify that the gun that showed up in Guadalajara was in fact purchased there by a man named Elias Cobian. And we were also able to verify that other guns that showed up in the indictment, other 50 calibers, had also been purchased at the store. The first time that I had walked into the store, I had asked, how many 50 calms do you sell in a year? And employees told me, we're lucky if we sell one. It's an expensive gun.

goes for around $9,000. And when I was able to get some information from the store about these purchases of 50 cows, I was able to verify that this crew had picked up about 4.50 cows in six months in 2018. And two of those 50 calibers, they sold to one man named Oswaldo Cobyon, who is the brother of Elias, who had purchased the 50 Calibius, who had purchased the $50. 50 cow that showed up at the house in Guadalajara. When I asked the employee at the time, did this ring any alarm bells, he told me, you know, it's not illegal.

And when we followed up with the store owner, he said, we don't condone the illegal movement of guns. And the fact of the matter is, is it's not illegal to own multiple 50 calibers in Wisconsin or much of the United States. I was driving around knocking on doors of neighbors. knocking on doors of the addresses. My first couple of days I was striking out and I was getting a little bit desperate

for to try to figure out who this family is, what their place is in the community, and how this all fits together. And so I went in from a few different angles. I tried to get in touch with an immigration activist. In Racine, whose family is also from Mexico, Racine has a high population of immigrants from Mexico, and in particular, actually, from Halisco.

Racine is a sister city, in fact, with a city in Halisco. I didn't have much luck there, so I kept going. I'd spoke to some neighbors, was able to confirm whether or not they still live there. And I decided to go to the family bar that was owned by someone named Maria Cobian. The bar's name is Victor's again. I had already supposed that the bar was named after Victor Cobian, who shows up in the public indictment that was unsealed earlier this year, but just wanted to confirm with her that it was, in fact, her son.

The first time I walked in, the bar was pretty full. It was at night, and Maria, the owner was back behind the bar. She was slinging coronas. And the first thing that you really notice about this bar is that it's quite a mashup of Mexico and Wisconsin culture. You look at the menu, there are burgers, there are chicken wings. But on Saturdays, they also serve this beef tripe menudo. There are enchiladas. There are very good tacos.

And even to the music, you'll hear a mix of U.S. country music. but you also hear Mexican ranchera music. There's sombreras on the wall, but there's also the Green Bay Packers, parapheralia, on the wall. Lime? Always. I know.

I saw the tacos the other day. That's amazing. And the second time I walked in, Maria, the owner, was there with a few people, and one of the televisions, there was a telenovela playing, and on the other screen, There is a Milwaukee brewer's game playing.

And I was able to sit down for an interview with Maria. I was able to get a little bit of information about the family's history in Racine in the surrounding area. I was able to get some information about how her now past husband in the mid-70s had been working in Wisconsin. They got married. They moved together back up to Wisconsin. And I was also able to put together that the man who purchased the 50 cow that had showed up at the safe house in Mexico was related to the family. They were her late husband's nephews. We invite, I know we invite him to work.

From Mexico. From Mexico. To work in the bar? They bought their house. Don't, no, no. They were construction. They were other things. Okay.

But the Barakausen we see them, and I don't know what they're doing. After I talked to Maria, I sat in the bar and ordered some tacos and tried to figure out where to go to next to be able to piece together this arms trafficking ring. It was clear to me that I wanted to try and talk to as many people as possible, including Victor Kobie. His name shows up in the indictment. His name has shown up on internal ATF documents. But his name also appears alongside in the indictment for conspiracy with a guy named Jesus Nantes, who the Treasury Department had sanctioned earlier this year for supplying weapons to C.J&G.

I had visited Victor's house a couple of times. Knocked on the door once, didn't get a response, drove by another time the Renault Reno cars in the driveway. The third time I went, there was someone in the driveway. The garage was open, and so I figured it was now or never. Oh, hey there. Hello. How's it going?

How's it happening? I'm sorry to just roll up on you on a Sunday like this. So I walked up to him. He was on his bayliner fishing boat and decided to have a chat with him about his case and the indictment. Can I come up on your phone? I'm going to come down. At this point, I had been in Racine for a few days.

I had tried even going to the public library and looking him up in his yearbook. I even knew that he had been on the football team when he was a freshman and that he had seemingly dropped out after that. So I had a lot of background information about this person, but I hadn't been able to talk to him. and he was actually pretty friendly when I walked up. I said I was a reporter, and he didn't really want to share too many details because it's an active investigation, and the trial is set for next year. But as we continued to chat over the course of that conversation, some key details did come out, and I was able to learn that his Cisneros was his cousin.

How did you mean him down there? He's my cousin. Oh, he's your cousin. Yeah. Oh. And we see him, I see him in passing, and that's it. Like, what's his, what's his vibe? I don't know.

Fucker drives by waves, and that's it. Really? Yeah, do you ever go to a small town when everybody drives by and just by there? And he was pretty quick to say, I am being unfairly associated with this guy just because he's my cousin. He was quick to point out that he himself had never purchased a 50-Cal and said that he knew nothing about the smuggling of guns from Wisconsin to California. down into Mexico. If you look on the indictment, the purchasers are other people, not me.

I asked him about the details of a raid that I was able to obtain a couple of slides from this internal ATF presentation. And in that presentation about the raid that included his house, there were these pictures of two handguns that agents had picked up at his house. They had gold-plated grip.

One had a, it was engraved with a saint that's popular with narco traffickers and the other had a gold coin and underneath etch were the ledgers CJ and G. Halisco New Generation Cartel. I tried to get a couple of more details about the case from Victor, but he didn't really want to say much more without his lawyer present. We had set up a time to speak with his lawyer the next day, but when I went to the office, the following day, his lawyer refused to speak to me. So where did that leave you? I had all of these disparate names. I had Alia San Oswaldo's name that we had shown up on internal ATF documents that I had been

able to obtain. And then I was able to get my hand on gun store records that showed that Alia San Oswaldo had purchased between them three 50 cows from just that one store that had remained open, the shooter's sports center. At that time, I had no idea how Alia San Oswald. Oswaldo were related to Victor Cobian or any of the other Cobians. I learned through talking to Maria, Victor's mother, and Marco, Victor's brother, that Elias and Oswaldo were their cousins.

And through talking to Maria, I learned that the family had invited Alias and Oswaldo up to racing to work in about 2010. And I was able to piece together how they knew each other. And from internal ATF documents that I had, and from the gun store records from the Shooter's Sports Center, I was able to confirm that a co-worker of Elias and Oswaldo named Patrick Fennell had also purchased a 50-caliber gun. I had gone to Patrick's house like four or five times over the course of my time in Racine,

knocked on the door and couldn't find him. No one was home. No cars were in the driveway. And on my very last interview in Racine, the night before that my plane left, I decided to give it one last go. And on that time, I walked up and Patrick was sweeping up in his yard. There was a couple of snowmobiles in the garage. There was some kind of heavy construction equipment.

And when I first asked him if he had ever purchased a 50 cow, he said, no. And then when I gave him the date and the serial number of the gun store said he purchased, he then came clean and said that he had in fact purchased the gun. And over the course of that conversation, I learned that he had described Elias and Oswaldo as close friends of his. and he declined to say if he had purchased any more guns for them. I asked him if he knew the gun was going to Mexico. He said, yeah, but I thought they were full of shit. And, you know, he's standing in basketball shorts

and like these white athletic tube socks in his driveway. And he declined to give me any more details after that. and he walked back into his house. I had set out to go to Wisconsin to piece together how a gun from Racine, Wisconsin, ended up in a cartel-controlled house in Mexico. And when I left, I felt pretty good about how all the pieces fit together. But as I kind of continued reporting,

it later came out that Racine was just the tip of the iceberg, that this guy, Jesus Sizneros, who investigators uncovered because of the Racine investigation, was actually running what ATF investigators came to call a super network. And this is at least a half a dozen cells that Jesus was supposedly running across the United States, all of them looking to buy and move high caliber weapons from the United States to Mexico. They were specializing in 50 cows. They were specializing in guns called FN Scars that were also made for special forces initially.

And that was the specialty of the networks where these higher grade weapons going into Mexico. DJNG is one of the two main cartels in Mexico. the other being Sinolaa that was infamously run by El Chapo before his sons took over. C.J&G is the other cartel that the U.S. Justice Department, the DEA, cites as being a major mover of methamphetamine, cocaine, and now fentanyl into the United States. The DEA has cited distribution hubs that the cartel has in L.A., New York, Chicago, Houston. and they move their drugs up north and they get their guns that move down south. And the DOJ in the United States

actually consider CJNG to be the most well-on-cartel in Mexico. And that's because this cartel, which emerged after 2010 and a split from Sinaloa, has increasingly made clear that violence is part of their brand. They have increasingly taken on Mexico. Mexican security forces. And they're sort of known for their aggressive violence tactics and their fear-based propaganda. For instance, they use a 50 caliber to down a Mexican Air Force helicopter.

And you can see in their propaganda, they're way more militarized in aesthetic than the Sinaloa cartel. They're in Kevlar vests. They're dressed like special forces. They're trained like special forces. and they're armed like special forces. And they have these kind of frequent displays of firepower, this arsenal that can rival Mexican security forces.

They're not afraid to do so directly. And this is from attacking police station, burning police vehicles, having rocket-propelled grenades, having armed drones. And CJNG has sort of, in recent years, kind of emerged as this violent well-armed cartel. And you talk to researchers here on violence in Mexico, and it's not only of the capacity of a gun like a 50-caliber

and then other high-impact weapons that they source from the United States, a lot of it is also showing their rivals, showing Mexican security forces, and the public in general, like, hey, listen, we have the money and we have the firepower to defend our territory, and we're willing to use it. And so that's why these rare, harder to find weapons became kind of a point of focus,

especially in recent years, and they're used in very specific attacks because they cost a lot of money. I mean, in the United States, a 50 cow will go for $9,000. Once it crosses the border into Mexico, on the black market, you're looking at between 30,000 to 50,000, if not more. Just from this Racine cell, a connected cell in Las Vegas, the agents were able to tie Cisneros

to, and another cell in Portland, $600,000 in this kind of high-impact weaponry. And that's just like a taste of what I was able to get my hands on in terms of documents. Wow. So what is being done to stop this trafficking, either in the U.S. or in Mexico? The issue of U.S. guns in Mexico is a flashpoint between the two countries because the human cost of the drug war in Mexico has been incalculable. And Mexico is always in the headlines for the violence that happens here in the cartel violence. But the cartels are arming themselves with weapons that they procure in the United States. And that's the argument of the Mexican government who sued nine gunmakers over the past few

years saying, hey, look, you guys know that these weapons are going to cartels. It's elevated the human cost of the drug war. It's led to a lot of death in Mexico. And you guys know this was happening. The case was ultimately dismissed saying that federal law could unagrously. equivocally, unquote, bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible when people use guns for their intended purpose. So at the end of the day, the United States is pushing on Mexico to do more to stop the flow

of drugs from Mexico to the United States. And Mexico's response has been right, but can you do more to both stop the supply of weapons to cartels and also stop the demand for drugs? So both sides have for years been pointing the finger at one another. And now they say in recent months, there has been an uptick of this language of putting arms trafficking and the flow of weapons alongside stopping the flow of guns and recognizing at least publicly, this is a shared problem between our two countries. Sarah, this story is incredible.

You mapped out this whole network. the Cobians, Victor Elias Oswaldo, this guy Patrick, and Jesus Sisneros, seemingly at the head of it all. So what ends up happening to everyone? After ATF trace the gun to Racine, agents from ATF Milwaukee went around to gun stores in the Racine area and were able to pull the records of 50-Cal purchases and other houses. high-caliber guns. And they got a break in October of 2018. Some high-caliber gun cases were found in a dumpster that was near Victor's again. And so they set up a pole cam outside of Oswald O'Wobian's house. They set up some human surveillance on Victor's house. They went through

phone records, bank records of members of the Cobian family and others who have been associated with the trafficking scheme in the indictment. And they had seen Oswaldo and Elias walking into the garage with two scar rifles. And agents didn't want those rifles to end up in Mexico. So within 24 hours, they were able to get a search. warrant. Following afternoon, about 75 members of local police, the FBI, a couple of other agencies and ATF met in the parking lot of this now defunct Kmart, got together, and deployed for a five-house raid. It also included Bearcat SWAT vehicles that were now like trolling the streets of racing, and they raided five houses, including Patrick Fennell's house and Victor Cobian's house.

In looking at documents after the raid, they recovered 52 firearms, a large variety of ammunition, and made two arrests, one of them being Victor Cobian. A jury trial was set for May of 2024, but Cisneros still remains at large. And in the past three years, Mexican authorities have seized 350 calibers, which is a record, according to data that I was able to obtain. ATF spokesperson Christina Mastrapasqua declined to comment on what she described as an open case. Mastrapasqua says preventing cross-border firearm trafficking is an ATF priority, and new powers had led to 250 people being charged since last year. Commenting on this story's findings, Alejandro Celorio, legal advisor to Mexico's foreign ministry, said those involved in the U.S. firearms business should be more careful to, quote,

prevent their products from falling into the wrong hands. Reuters was unable to reach representatives for CJNG or Osegera. The Racine mayor's office also did not respond to request for comment. FN. Hurstel, which makes the FN. Scar assault rifles, told Reuters it, it commends U.S. law enforcement for investigating illegal networks, saying its U.S.-made firearms are only intended for the Defense Department, law enforcement, and the most reputable authorized dealers. Barrett, the maker of the 50-calibre rifle,

did not respond to detailed requests for comment for this report. That's it for this special weekend episode. Thanks to Sarah and photographer Brian Snyder, whose reporting made this episode possible. Reuters World News is produced by Jonah Green, Tara Oaks, David Spencer, Kim Vanel, and myself. Our senior producer is Carmel Crimmons. Our executive producer is Leila de Kretzer.

Engineering and sound design by Josh Summer. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.