Oklahoma man made hundreds of ghost guns for Mexican cartel

BY STEPHEN STOCK, MICHAEL BOTSFORD, JOSE SANCHEZ, LAURA GELLER

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023 / 12:51 PM / CBS NEWS

He did it for years. And only a tip from a legitimate gun parts supplier helped U.S. law enforcement authorities catch him.

Evidence photos from the U.S. District Court case illustrate the sophisticated operation run out of a house in Nuevo Laredo for years, right across the border from Laredo, Texas.

It's where retired ATF Special Agent Edwin Starr tells CBS News that Andrew Scott Pierson, of Jay, Oklahoma, smuggled ghost gun parts and set up a gun manufacturing operation to supply two different Mexican drug cartels with weapons.

"He was very slick. He had multiple identities," said Starr, who helped break the case.

"When his residence was finally searched by Mexican police, they found passports... from countries as far away as Lithuania," Starr said. "He had multiple identities he used in Mexico, voter ID cards, birth certificates. He had multiple identities in states in the United States."

More:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ghost-guns-mexican-cartel/