# Operation Fast and Furious > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "Operation Fast and Furious," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/operation-fast-and-furious/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The ATF gun-walking operation John Kiriakou describes as the background to the Donnie Reynolds Jr case — in which agents let 2,000 weapons reach Mexican cartel buyers in the hope of tracing them upward, arrested nobody at the top, and then turned back on the small players when Congress demanded answers.* - **Originally known as:** The ATF gun-walking scandal - **Began:** 2006 - **Method:** Allowing technically illegal sales to straw buyers, then tracing the guns - **By 2011:** 2,000 guns sold; no cartel members arrested; 710 recovered - **Typical sentences from the resulting arrests:** Three years' probation to eight years in prison **Operation Fast and Furious** — originally known as the ATF gun-walking scandal — is the operation [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) sets out as the background to the case of [Donnie Reynolds Jr](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/donnie-reynolds-jr), a prisoner held at [the Communications Management Unit](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/communications-management-unit) in Terre Haute, Indiana.[1] ## Origins In Kiriakou's telling, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms came under pressure from 2006 because of its focus on arresting low-level dealers and sellers of unregistered or unlicensed guns, many of which ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartel members.[1] The pressure was to overlook those initial sales and instead track the movement of the guns up the chain of command to see where they ended up. Kiriakou says that is what the bureau did — it traced the guns' movement, and then did not really do anything about it.[1] ## The mechanics Beginning in 2006, ATF agents in Arizona allowed licensed gun dealers to make technically illegal sales to straw buyers, hoping to trace the sales back to the cartels and then make high-level arrests.[2] Kiriakou gives the outcome in figures: by 2011, after the sale of 2,000 guns, not a single cartel member had been arrested, and only 710 of the guns had been recovered. The rest were simply missing.[2] Several of the guns were found near the scene of the murder of a Border Patrol agent, and Congress began calling for heads to roll.[3] ## The retreat With no ability to reach the cartels, Kiriakou says, the ATF and the Justice Department went back to focusing on the little guys — and by then it was all about the department saving face.[3] Dozens of arrests came out of the operation, largely for violations of three different gun sales laws, with most sentences ranging from three years' probation up to eight years in prison.[3] Kiriakou is careful to distinguish the field agents from the policy. He says that by all accounts ATF agents hated the operation from the start: their job is to interdict weapons, not to let them walk into the arms of the cartels — but that was the order from the Justice Department.[4] ## The scapegoat His account of the aftermath is the pivot into the Reynolds case. When everything fell apart and Congress demanded answers, Kiriakou says, the department began looking for scapegoats — and if a scapegoat could take the fall for the murder of a federal agent, so much the better.[4] That, in his framing, is how Donnie Reynolds Jr came onto the Justice Department's Fast and Furious radar.[4] Kiriakou also describes the unit in which Reynolds is held. Communications Management Units were created by the Bureau of Prisons in 2006 as part of the George W. Bush administration's counterterrorism framework, shrouded in secrecy and intended to isolate certain prisoners from the rest of the federal population — the hardest of the hardcore. There are two for men and one for women; Reynolds is at Terre Haute, which is also the location of the federal system's death row.[5][6] ## See also - [Donnie Reynolds Jr.](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/donnie-reynolds-jr) - [Communications management unit](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/communications-management-unit) - [Marty Gottesfeld](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/marty-gottesfeld) - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) ## Sources 1. S1E27 Prisoner Ex (2026-05-11), at 12:12. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69ee9259eefc66ef2b061811/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-11-dead-drop-s1e27-prisoner-ex/ 2. S1E27 Prisoner Ex (2026-05-11), at 12:44. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69ee9259eefc66ef2b061811/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-11-dead-drop-s1e27-prisoner-ex/ 3. S1E27 Prisoner Ex (2026-05-11), at 13:18. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69ee9259eefc66ef2b061811/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-11-dead-drop-s1e27-prisoner-ex/ 4. S1E27 Prisoner Ex (2026-05-11), at 13:54. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69ee9259eefc66ef2b061811/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-11-dead-drop-s1e27-prisoner-ex/ 5. S1E27 Prisoner Ex (2026-05-11), at 07:50. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69ee9259eefc66ef2b061811/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-11-dead-drop-s1e27-prisoner-ex/ 6. S1E27 Prisoner Ex (2026-05-11), at 08:24. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69ee9259eefc66ef2b061811/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-11-dead-drop-s1e27-prisoner-ex/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/operation-fast-and-furious/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt