FORT WORTH — Smugglers with a Mexican drug cartel targeted last week by federal authorities used homes and business parking lots in Fort Worth and Cleburne to stash and trade weapons bound for the border, according to federal court documents.
Five acres surrounded by barbed wire in Cleburne and a south Fort Worth restaurant parking lot were among the locations where guns were exchanged, investigators said.
Smugglers transporting weapons on Interstate 35W through Burleson used two-way radios to watch for law enforcement tails.
Those are among the details included in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The weapons investigation was part of a nationwide crackdown on the violent cartel La Familia, which resulted in the arrest of 300 people last week.
Arrests occurred in 38 cities and 19 states, but officials called Dallas-Fort Worth "a critical distribution point" for the cartel.
Read the complete story at star-telegram.com