A Mexican national living unlawfully in Medford has pleaded guilty to buying 91 firearms for $56,448 between May 2024 and July 2025, then admitting he sold them to whoever wanted one — including people legally barred from owning a gun. Samuel Rodrigo Melo Santos entered his guilty plea this week on charges of being an alien in possession of a firearm and making false statements during firearm purchases.
The case was first detailed in a post from ATF Seattle, the field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that covers Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. According to the Department of Justice, Melo Santos also purchased roughly 40,000 rounds of ammunition while buying the 91 guns, and he falsely claimed U.S. citizenship on federal Form 4473 paperwork despite listing Mexico as his place of birth. That form requires prospective gun buyers to declare their citizenship and legal residency status under penalty of perjury.
Federal authorities say at least one of those 91 firearms was later recovered by law enforcement in Mexico, underscoring how guns purchased in Southern Oregon ended up crossing the border. The Justice Department has noted that illicit U.S. firearms frequently supply organized crime groups operating along the Southwest border.
How the Scheme Came Apart
The trafficking operation first came to light in July 2025, when ATF agents conducting a routine compliance inspection at a federally licensed gun dealer in Cave Junction noticed a pattern of repeated sales involving the same gun models tied to shared addresses in O'Brien and Medford, according to the Department of Justice. That discovery opened the door to a wider investigation into a network accused of illegally purchasing at least 173 firearms across Southern Oregon gun dealers beginning in early 2024.
Melo Santos was not operating alone. Three co-defendants — Samuel Amador Ortega, Aldo Melo Amador and Oscar Amador Ortega — were also accused of illegally buying firearms as part of the same scheme, all of them Mexican nationals residing unlawfully in the United States when they were charged in federal court, per the Justice Department. Court records cited by the department show Aldo Melo Amador purchased 41 firearms across dealers in Cave Junction and Medford, Oscar Amador Ortega acquired 25 firearms, and Samuel Amador Ortega bought 16 firearms between March 2024 and July 2025.
Sentencing Set for October, Co-Defendants Still Awaiting Trial
Melo Santos faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release, with sentencing scheduled for October 9, 2026, before U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane, the Justice Department reported. As part of his plea agreement, announced by U.S. Attorney Scott E. Bradford, Melo Santos agreed to forfeit all criminally derived proceeds and any property used to facilitate his firearms trafficking offenses.
His three co-defendants remain awaiting trial in a case being investigated jointly by the ATF, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to FlashAlert. Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Harper is prosecuting the case for the District of Oregon. Federal law bars non-citizens unlawfully present in the U.S. from possessing firearms or making false statements during gun transactions, offenses that carry statutory maximum penalties of up to 15 years under updated federal guidelines, per CourtCalculator.
Part of a Broader Trafficking Trend
The Medford case fits into a pattern federal investigators have flagged nationally. An ATF assessment published in January 2025 found a 63% increase in U.S. crime guns traced and recovered in Mexico between 2017 and 2023, with multiple-firearm sale transactions becoming twice as likely to yield recovered crime guns over that same period, the Department of Justice reported. Officials have said the trend has prompted expanded dealer compliance audits aimed at catching illegal trafficking before weapons cross the border.
Hoodline first reported on the case in December, when Melo Santos and his three co-defendants made their initial federal court appearances on the trafficking-related criminal complaint. It remains an open question whether additional firearms from the 173-gun network will surface in future crime traces domestically or internationally, and what sentence Melo Santos will ultimately receive when he appears before Judge McShane in October.
