Revealed: Operation Fast and Furious guns used in 2010 Mexico massacre of 16 people - including 14 TEENS



16 people were killed in 2010 massacre at birthday party

Attorney General Eric Holder cleared of any wrongdoing in report two weeks ago that said he should have been briefed



Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson quit as report was released

Operation Fast and Furious was a failed gun-trafficking probe



The guns used in a 2010 mass murder of mostly young men and women - came from the U.S. in its failed gun-tracking program known as Operation Fast and Furious, a shocking report has revealed.

It has now been discovered that three of the guns used in the relentless assault came from Fast and Furious, the botched Department of Justice gun-trafficking operation.

The Villas de Salvarcar massacre in January 2010 was one of the darkest days of the Mexican drug war, after about 20 armed cartel members stormed a birthday party in Ciudad Juarez at about midnight and began firing at random, killing 16 people.

Fourteen of the victims were teenagers.

Scroll down for video

Streets running red: Sixteen young people where killed in the Villas de Salvarcar massacre in January 2010

Bloodbath: A girl walks down the blood-soaked Villa del Portal street in Villas de Salvarcar, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

Univision confirmed the information in an official document obtained through a Freedom of Information request.



The report, translated by ABC News said that weapons used in the devastating shooting were linked to Fast and Furious through serial numbers.

A Justice Department spokesman told MailOnline that the agency is trying to review the Univision report, and 'cannot confirm or deny anything that’s been reported' at this point.



The mastermind behind the attack, Drug boss Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez was sentenced to seven life terms in April for his role in the birthday party shooting and other acts of murder and violence that he ordered.

Sentencing: With his charges including murder, conspiracy to kill and various racketeering, money laundering and drug charges Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez was sentenced to seven concurrent life terms and three additional consecutive life terms

Hernandez was a chief in La Linea, an arm of the Juarez Drug Cartel.

In a plea agreement, Hernandez confessed to ordering his men to kill members of a rival gang at the birthday party in Ciudad Juarez.

He also admitted that he participated in the murder of U.S. consulate employee Arthur Redelfs and his wife and a car bombing that killed four Mexican police officers.

In total, Hernandez has been linked to '1,500 murders since 2008,' according to the plea document.



A damning September 19 report led two top Department of Justice officials to be ousted from their jobs - but Attorney General Eric Holder was ruled blameless in the gun-trafficking scandal.

Two senior officials left the department, one by resignation and one by retirement, upon release of the 471-page internal report.

Its author, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, also referred 14 people for possible department disciplinary action for their roles in Operation Fast and Furious and a separate, earlier probe known as Wide Receiver, undertaken during the George W Bush administration.



Escape: Attorney General Eric Holder was cleared of any wrongdoing in the Fast and Furious probe, but the report found that he should have been briefed on the investigation

The high risk operation saw guns being allowed to be purchased by Mexican gangsters and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives agents were supposed to track them to higher level drug cartel members and catch the bigger fish red-handed.

But, it backfired and resulted in hundreds of weapons turning up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico.

And in the worst failure U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was gunned down in December 2010 with two guns that agents had been trying to track.

Terry's murder was the catalyst that began the internal probe into the gun operation after two of the 2,000 weapons thought to have been acquired by illicit buyers were found at the murder scene.

About 1,400 of the total are yet to be recovered.



No criminal charges were recommended in the report.

Victim: U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down with one of the weapons used in Operation Fast and Furious in December 2010

The documents did not criticise Holder, but said lower-level officials should have briefed him about the investigation much earlier.

Investigators found that Holder didn't know anything about Fast and Furious until late January/early February and found no evidence that that the attorney general was told about the much-disputed 'gun-walking' tactic employed by the department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The inspector general found fault with the work of the senior ATF leadership, the ATF staff and U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix and senior officials of Justice's criminal division in Washington.



He also said that poor internal information-gathering and drafting at Justice and ATF caused the department to initially misinform Congress about Fast and Furious.

One of those criticized in the report, former ATF acting director Kenneth Melson, who headed that office during the Fast and Furious investigation, retired upon release of the report.

'Melson made too many assumptions about the case,' the report stated. 'Melson should have asked basic questions about the investigation, including how public safety was being protected.'

Another of those criticized, Justice Department career attorney Jason Weinstein, resigned.

Weinstein was a deputy assistant attorney general in Justice's criminal division in Washington.

'Weinstein was the most senior person in the department in April and May 2010 who was in a position to identify the similarity between the inappropriate tactics used in Operations Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious,' the report said.

Weinstein's lawyer, Michael Bromwich, called the report's criticism 'profoundly wrong' and 'deeply flawed.'

Resigned: Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, the top Justice Department official with the power to stop Operation Fast and Furious

ARSENAL: Weapons tied to the gun trafficking operation known Fast and Furious were discovered in April in the home of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, in the volatile city of Juarez, Mexico

In Operation Fast and Furious and at least three earlier probes during the administration of George W. Bush, agents in Arizona employed a risky tactic called gun-walking - allowing low-level 'straw' buyers - believed to be working for notorious Mexican drug cartels - to leave with loads of weapons purchased at gun shops.

But because of thin ATF staffing and weak penalties, the traditional strategy of arresting suspected straw buyers as soon as possible had failed to stop the flow of tens of thousands of guns to Mexico - more than 68,000 in the past five years.



The goal was to track the guns to major weapons traffickers and drug cartels in order to bring cases against kingpins who had long eluded prosecution under the former strategy of arresting low-level purchasers of guns who were suspected of buying them for others.

The report also said that poor internal information-gathering and drafting at the Justice Department and ATF caused the department to initially misinform Congress about Fast and Furious.

Out: Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' retired upon the release of the report, which heavily criticised him for assuming too much

Rep Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and vocal critic of the operation, said: 'The inspector general's report confirms findings by Congress' investigation of a near total disregard for public safety in Operation Fast and Furious.'

The report's conclusion reads: 'Our review of Operation Fast and Furious and related matters revealed a series of misguided strategies, tactics, errors in judgment, and management failures that permeated ATF Headquarters and the Phoenix Field Division, as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona.'

One of the five suspects in Terry's murder was arrested two weeks ago .

Jesus Leonel Sanchez Meza, who was arrested on September 6 in Sonora state .

Another suspect is currently on trial, while three more - Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, 31, Ivan Soto-Barraza, 34, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, 34 - remain at large.