Our source and his manager didn't call the authorities immediately -- buying a fancy gun with cash isn't illegal; otherwise, how would we have rap videos? But, gradually, their suspicions began to pile up ...

" ... then, we started getting more and more phone calls over the weeks. Same questions. We had four or five come in ... that first guy came in five or six times, saying he was starting a collection. You don't buy five to six of the same 10k rifle for a collection."

After a couple weeks of escalating sketchiness, they reported the straw purchasers to the ATF, who immediately showed up to shut this shit d-

Once the purchase was completed and the "customer" left the store, " ... the money was counted with the cameras watching it. And then paperwork started."

Spencer Platt/Getty Images News/Getty Images
While the "customer" reviewed them on Yelp. It got stressful for both sides.

"Once the ATF was more involved, we had a separate set of paperwork. You took their 4473 [the form you fill out to buy a gun] and transcribed all that, then it asked what type of transaction it was, how many 100s, how many 50s, how many 10s, ones. Then, basic questions: Did you feel they knew what they were buying? Did they buy ammo? Accessories?"

Did you feel they enjoyed their purchasing experience? How could the ATF make selling firearms to the cartels a more pleasurable process? How does the cartel feel about branded accessories? Would they be interested in Hello Kitty grips or SpongeBob sights?

" ... it started to get more and more severe. We were placing special orders with Barrett because we couldn't keep up [with] demand. At one point, it was probably four to five of these rifles a week. Also FN57 pistols ... but, the Barretts were the big one."

ROG5728/Wiki Commons
Aww, look at the little baby pistol! With armor-piercing rounds!

The Barrett is a rifle with almost no practical criminal uses. It weighs around 30 pounds and costs as much as a damn car. The reason the cartels had use for the Barrett is chilling: When you're as large as, say, Los Zetas, your "turf wars" involve the Mexican army. A gun that can shoot through tanks is pretty useful for that. And, lucky for them, America had a surplus of Barretts, because "fuck yeah."

The cartels were smart enough to pick buyers who wouldn't instantly set off alarm bells (aka clean-cut and often white). "They didn't look like they were all connected ... One guy came in with his wife and kids. These guys aren't stupid. They know how to pull the wool over your eyes."

This made for an interesting customer service dilemma: How do you deal with a customer you know is:

1. Actively providing firearms to one of the most dangerous organizations in the world and ...
2. Being monitored by the ATF, so ...
3. They're probably gonna go to super-prison for that.

Steve Allen/Stone/Getty Images
It's like regular prison, but it orbits the Earth.

"You put on a face, like any customer service job, and you try to build a rapport with these guys. So, you would come in, say hello, shoot the shit, ask him about his kid. You try and keep it as normal as possible; you don't want to spook him because then everything's shot as well. Yes, it was stressful but, at the same time, you knew what you had to do, and you did it and tried not to spook him, or whatever."

So ... same basic rules as slinging coffee at Starbucks, only with slightly higher stakes if somebody doesn't buy your fake smile.

The perfect moment to strike, of course! All of the straw buyers were arrested in one fell swoop in 2011. That sounds great, but the agent working with our source and his store told everyone that the charges wouldn't stick:

"Our agent was pretty candid with us: He let us know the guys doing it had been arrested. Then, they were let go, because what they had done hadn't been illegal -- they hadn't seen a hand off. They weren't tracking them well enough; everyone made it over the border."

Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images News/Getty Images
"We really need to get this built. America keeps sending over their criminals and gunmen ... and some, I assume, are good people."

Your elite government task force in action, everybody: "Guess we just gave the bad guys a buncha weapons." *awkward shrug*

The whole mess immediately became an embarrassment for the Obama administration. But, the ATF's "sell guns to cartels and then maybe try to catch them if we've got time" plan actually dates back to the Bush Administration. "Project Gunrunner" (at least they were honest with the name) kicked off in 2006. "Operation Wide Receiver" was a subset of the overall project, centered around Arizona. "Operation Fast And Furious," the one you've actually heard about, launched in 2009.

For our source, who did nothing but exactly what the law told him, watching the bloody aftermath of the scandal was traumatic:

"Our initial thought was how many of these can be pointed across the border at our guys? We were a large store ... you meet these border patrol agents coming to pick up extra stuff. Man, how awful am I gonna feel if one of these guys gets plugged with a weapon I sold?"

US Government
"Sorry, James. The F in ATF doesn't stand for feelings."

Well, worry not, James, because the victims were mostly-

"And it's not gonna feel any better if I hear about some village in Mexico getting wiped out."

Oh. Well, crap. Sorry, man -- at least 150 Mexican civilians have been hurt or killed by weapons the ATF let enter Mexico.

And how many bad guys did they get? Thirty-four. Not all of them went to prison, and none of them were cartel bigwigs. Meanwhile, check out this picture of a gun cache from El Chapo's hide-out:

ElBlogDelNarco.com

That's a Barrett .50 caliber rifle, confirmed to have gotten to Mexico via the ATF's gun-running program. Hell, our source might have sold El Chapo that very rifle.

Maybe, he'll see this and send a thank you card.

Robert Evans just wrote a book, A Brief History of Vice, where he experiments with strange ancient drugs. Pre-order it now! And follow Robert on Twitter.

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