Illegal firearm trafficking is inseparable from the illegal drug trade: Weapons are often bought with drug money, can strengthen cartels and can be traded for drugs.

In the spring of 2021, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, known as ATF, started a gun-trafficking investigation that ran from Idaho, down through California and into Mexico. The investigation uncovered a scheme to drive pounds of narcotics north, and some of their “white China” and black tar heroin were exchanged for guns that an Idaho Falls resident purchased out of a firearm seller’s garage.

By the summer, ATF and other federal agents tracked the traffickers to a hotel off West Broadway Street in downtown Idaho Falls, where they observed a suspected drug deal and apprehended their suspects.

Their final haul included 15 pounds of meth, a pound of heroin, 3,000 fentanyl pills and 16 handguns and rifles.

The incident fits into a larger web of trafficking guns south to Mexico and narcotics north to the American Midwest and coasts. The Louisville Courier Journal documented the connection in their investigation into cartel drugs poisoning........

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