Zapata murder weapon suspect denied bail.

"Gun-smuggling suspect from Lancaster is ordered held in Mexico slaying case."

A Lancaster man linked to a gun used in the slaying of a federal agent in Mexico was a black market gunsmith who received weapons training in the U.S. Marine Corps, according to testimony at a federal detention hearing in Dallas on Wednesday.

Ranferi Osorio, 27, served eight years in Iraq , Afghanistan and Africa before he was honorably discharged in 2009, his estranged wife Valerie Rojas testified. Osorio supported his family by buying and selling guns but had no firearms license, she said.

She and defense attorney Michael Levine argued that Osorio, a father of two, is not a flight risk and should be released pending trial, but a federal magistrate judge found him to be a danger to the public and ordered him detained.

The judge’s decision came after an ATF agent testified about how Ranferi Osorio and his brother, Otilio, and a third man, neighbor Kelvin Morrison, were caught in a sting giving an informant a load of 40 guns to be shipped across the border.

In order to arrange the deal with the Osorios, an ATF informant had to call a contact in New York, an ATF agent testified Wednesday, indicating the breadth of the gun-smuggling network.

Agents believe the guns were destined for the Zetas, one of the most deadly drug cartels in Mexico. Many of the guns they use to kill rivals and soldiers in Mexico are smuggled from Texas and other U.S. border states, authorities have said.

Federal authorities had been investigating the three Lancaster men’s ties to a Zeta gun-smuggling network since November. But they did not arrest them until after a gun purchased at a Dallas gun show by Otilio Osorio was found to have been used in the Feb. 15 death of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico. The gun dealer was licensed out of Joshua.

Authorities believe a Zeta hit squad murdered Zapata. Mexican officials have arrested at least two of the cartel’s members so far.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Levine argued that there is no evidence of Osorio’s link to Mexican drug cartels.

“The specter of [ICE Agent Zapata’s] death is going to deprive him” of his freedom, Levine told the judge. “There are no accusations of violence attributed to him.”

Osorio’s military service does not “give him license to violate the law,” prosecutor Gary Tromblay said. “He was trying to place 40 guns with obliterated serial numbers in the hands of cartels.”

No trial date has been set in the case.

Ranferi Osorio, 27, served eight years in the Marines before he began a black market gun-smuggling business in 2009 that federal agents say served the Zetas Mexican drug cartel. A gun linked to Osorio and his brother was used in a deadly assault on an ICE agent in Mexico last month, agents say.