Juarez Junk Dealer Finds 23 in ‘Empty’ Crates : Army Sells Live Rockets by Mistake

Twenty-three highly explosive U.S. air-to-ground rockets were unknowingly sold to a junk dealer in neighboring Juarez, Mexico, officials at Ft. Bliss acknowledged today.

Pedro Salas of Juarez, who regularly salvages items from Ft. Bliss, said he was rebuffed by civilian employees of the Army last week when he told them he had discovered the rockets in supposedly empty wooden crates he bought at the military installation.

Salas said he was so angry he delivered the canisters containing 2.7-inch diameter rockets to the Mexican army.

Salas frequently buys used wooden crates at the fort, officials said. He successfully bid on the boxes Jan. 22 and returned with them to his home in South Juarez.

Officials said Salas began unloading the crates, tossing them to the ground off his pickup truck, when he noticed the boxes seemed heavy.

He opened one of the crates and discovered two cylinder-shaped canisters.

“When Salas went back to Ft. Bliss, the employees wouldn’t listen to him,” one official said. “Salas then told the Mexican army and soldiers confiscated the crates and the 23 rockets.”

The rockets are designed to be fired from helicopter gunships against “hardened targets, and they blow the hell out of anything they hit,” the official said.

U.S. Consul Imogene Karawi in Juarez said attempts by the Army to have the rockets returned have been unsuccessful.