`` Operation Fast and Furious '' involved more than 2,000 guns , sources tell CNN . Fewer than 600 have been recovered in the United States and Mexico , they say . The problem was that once the guns were allowed to `` walk , '' there was no way to recover them until they turned up at crime scenes . The operation was a major embarrassment for Attorney General Eric Holder who had promised to root out gun smuggling by Mexican cartels but has admitted that his department did not do enough to stop it.
`` Operation Fast and Furious '' involved more than 2,000 guns , sources tell CNN . Fewer than 600 have been recovered in the United States and Mexico , they say . The operation was a major embarrassment for Attorney General Eric Holder who had promised to root out gun smuggling by Mexican cartels but has admitted that his department did not do enough to stop it.