During Operation Fast and Furious, the largest gunwalking probe, the ATF monitored the sale of about 2,000 firearms, of which only 710 were recovered as of February 2012. A number of straw purchasers have been arrested and indicted; however, as of October 2011, none of the targeted high-level cartel figures had been arrested.
Critically, the GPS battery life was only a few days and the GPS weapon “tracker” signal was routinely lost especially in car trunks.[8] This lack of technical sophistication and failure of GPS as a tracker, were the major reasons for Fast and Furious failure as an ATF operation.
Call it what you want and imply what you want, it was a critical failure by all account that ultimately armed the cartels further.