Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pressed Garland regarding the opioid epidemic, highlighting that fentanyl is responsible for more deaths than guns and car accidents. The Mexican government estimates that more than half a million guns are smuggled from the U.S. each year, arming Mexico's deadly cartel wars. MLB legend makes surprise appearance at Astros' Spring Training, Hiker takes 'once-in-a-lifetime' photo at Brazos Bend State Park, Eric Gordon trade looking better and better for Houston Rockets, This Texas Hill Country town is the new, cooler Fredericksburg, This is what Houston looks like from space, Oops! Majority all arms used in Mexico, where gun control laws are very strict, are bought in the U.S . Never heard of Fast and Furious? A recent report reveals 60 percent of all confiscated weapons in Mexico are seized in the three states of Tamaulipas, Guerrero, and Jalisco, with 7 out of 10 weapons confiscated coming from the United States. The state, about a five-hour drive west of Mexico City,is known for its production of avocados. I think thats pretty fair. An Italian-made 9mm pistol that is a best-seller among U.S. law enforcement agencies. In fact, according to Newsweek, cartel criminals view American guns as status symbols because, well, they work. "They didn't look like they were all connected One guy came in with his wife and kids. Get the best of Cracked sent directly to your inbox! Of course, thats not primary the message Newsweek and the mainstream media (not to mention Mexican officials) want readers to take away from their report. Violence is rampant across Mexico. Comparing it to Belgium and Czech and German Model 98s made the M70 look like a piece of trash. Newsweek, the defunct print magazine, reports that Mexican drug and crime cartels prefer American-made guns to use against their rivals and innocent Mexican civilians. Fake News. RELATED:Documents allege Texas DPS spying on Mexico. Same guys, different job. https://www.npr.org/2019/02/21/696561255/heckler-koch-fined-4-2-million-over-assault-rifle-sales-in-mexico, For no other reason than eric holder lead the investigation, I question everything we know about the Oklahoma City bombing, wow is that guy nuts. It's made it easier than ever to drive to any Texas gun shop and legally stockpile guns, whether or not the customers belong to a Mexican cartel. But then, he broke out the huge bag of cash. Pre-order it now! "It's hard to pinpoint exactly where we think a particular load (of guns) we seized was going,"Lestrange said. The problem isnt cartels sneaking (civilian) guns from the U.S. First manufactured in the 1980s, the M82 rose to prominence during the first Gulf War when it was adopted by theUS military. The English actor found the good side of being bad, Bad news that cult recovery group just might be a cult. Drug cartels have been using monster type armored cars for about 15 years these recent photos clashes in tamaulipas between cdn and cdg they use m82 m017 barrets also m2 machine guns and 40mm grenades this doesn't happen very far from egle pass texas or mcallen texas . btw They're probably gonna go to super-prison for that. The M82 guns, often fitted with a scope to act as snipers weapon, can fire 70 rounds per minute with a maximum range of 2,500 meters. In 2018, the homicide rate in Mexico hit a record high of 35,964, spiking 12 percent from the year before, according to the countrys National Institute of Statistics and Geography. Eighty-seven percent of traceable firearms seized by the Mexican government have been traced back to the U.S. We've inadvertently "gifted" Mexico with more than 64,000 firearms over the last five years. Why havent you closed your northern border with a massive military presence to stop south bound smuggling? Then, he says, 'Oh, I've been interested in the Barrett.' The majority of U.S. states allow citizens to buy .50-caliber weapons . "Operation Wide Receiver" was a subset of the overall project, centered around Arizona. Copyright 2023 Deseret News Publishing Company. Oh. As Mexican drug groups cut in on avocado sales by extorting growers, armed locals fight back, Daughter of Mexican cartel boss sentenced to US prison for violation of Kingpin Act. Given the record number of murders there last year almost 36,000 Mexicans could certainly use some self-defense tools. These guys aren't stupid. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate. For more insider perspectives, check out 5 Insane Things I Learned About Drugs As An Undercover Agent and 6 Ways Life In Cartel-Run Mexico Is Nothing Like You Imagine. This is a carousel. In fact these Paperwork-Americans are even more American than us evil racists! Where do Mexican drug cartels get their guns? Often, the United States Really, who? If American made guns are somehow responsible for all this killing by the evil people using them, why do you allow them to enter your country so easily? According to prosecutors, the weapons are believed to belong to the Valencia gang, allies of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, and most of the 31 pistols found in the raid had gold or silver-plated grips or glittered with diamonds. This story has been shared 164,095 times. Theres no way for people to buy guns like these in Mexico. Tijuanas Director of Public Safety, Marco Antonio Sotomayor, says most of the guns flowing into his city come from north of the border. "It's a horrible epidemic, but it . The Central Intelligence Agency was intimately involved with the federal government's infamous "Operation Fast and Furious" scheme to send American weapons to Mexican drug cartels while. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Video shows gunman nonchalantly shoot homeless man execution-style in broad daylight, NJ man tried to board plane with handguns, AR-15, Taser, phony US Marshal badge, Parolee flaunted ghost gun on social media before weapons arrest: feds, Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed can keep gun at home: judge. I'm like, 'makes sense, he's a military kid.' Are insane ticket costs pricing Astros fans out of Opening Day? In May 2008, Mexican federal police raided a suspected trafficker house in Culiacan, a long-standing drug hotbed in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Mexico suffered more than 40,000 fatal shootings in 2018, according to public briefings by Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard. Former Mexico security chief convicted in U.S. for taking cartel bribes Robert Evans just wrote a book, A Brief History of Vice, where he experiments with strange ancient drugs. 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. Between 2009 and 2020, authorities seized 358 M82rifles, according to official figures cited by the Milenio newspaper. A total of 852, 29 percent, were from Arizona. U.S. Customs agents searched hisvehicle at the Eagle Passcrossing and found 43 shotguns, rifles and pistols. American fentanyl crisis 'unleashed on purpose' by Mexican drug cartels Colt Super .38 pistol: Colt, based in West Hartford, Conn., is the corporate legacy of Samuel Colt, who popularized the revolver in the years before the Civil War. This small-town Oregon bricklayer had a side hustle: Gun supplier for How in the hell can any society withstand such incredible violence and not crumble? filed a lawsuit in theUS District Court in Massachusetts against the company and 10 other gun manufacturers. We'll sell those guys so many guns they drown in them! Weapons and jewelry seized to alleged leader of "El Cartel del Golfo" Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, aka "El Coss", are presented to the press in Mexico City, on September 13, 2012. In the absence of sane border security policies, Guerra said, drug cartels decide who crosses, and people in their organizations use the children to enter the U.S. The article, titled, "The U.S. Must Defeat Mexico's Drug Cartels", . Email us here. Miguel Diaz Calderon never made it out of Texas. These Are The Twitter Accounts Of The Sons Of Mexico's Drug Cartel Leaders Mexico Sues Gun Companies in U.S., Accusing Them of Fueling Violence Even ballistic helmets were seen in use. Of course, these same quoted Mexican officials made no mention of changing their own to laws to allow the little people to own some cold steel with which they could protect themselves and their families from corrupt federales and cartel predators. Every once in a while, a dolt drops a gem. Mexico's drug war fought with drones, human shields, gunships ", Your elite government task force in action, everybody: "Guess we just gave the bad guys a buncha weapons." Hundreds of firearms on display before being destroyed at . Cant have all those firearms in the USA, so lets pipeline them to Mexico. The survey drawn from guns identified by manufacturer or importer in U.S. court documents from 44 cases involving 165 defendants in Texas, Arizona and three other states shows the purveyors of guns to Mexican drug traffickers followed a time-honored maxim of product salesmanship: Bigger is definitely better. A Hearst Newspapers survey of 1,600 guns purchased mostly in Texas and Arizona which were either shipped to Mexico or intercepted en route shows the Bushmaster .223 AR-15 ranks second among firearms apparently used in drug warfare. For thecartels, the M82 has also become a status symbol. And then paperwork started. Mexico Sues US Gun Makers Over Illegal Guns Flowing Across - Insider John Boch, you said: Was Operation Fast And Furious Really Part Of A Secret Deal - Forbes of violence in this conflict: intra-cartel disputes, inter-cartel rivalries, and the overall war that Mexican President Felipe Caldern's government is waging on the cartels. We've received your submission. Evening roundup with our editors' favorite stories of the day . And we're on commission at the time, so all of us involved are like sweet! The perfect moment to strike, of course! Im having a memory lapsewhich guns are made in Mexico, exactly? It is also one of the weapons of choice for drug cartels, according to the. The Medellin cartel surged to power in the 1980s. Its just to easy to buy up second hand guns and ship them to Mexico. The tribes in America are not allowed to do things like that, instead they have to follow 3 sets of laws, otherwise a lot of white Americans would move to the reservations for some liberty. Gun-rights advocates doubt the accuracy of that claim. Whats so hard to understand about that? Vasquez'sattorney, Silverio Martinez, said he plans to lobby for leniency, even probation, arguing this is his client's first arrest. "But we also know most of the violence the Mexican government is concerned about against police and against institutions is coming from CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel" run by the notorious kingpin "El Chapo,"Lestrange said. ", Yvonne Hemsey/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. Cartels exploiting border chaos to smuggle fentanyl into US - New York Post Mexican military forces confiscated 71 armor-piercing 50-caliber gunsin the year ending January 2020, according to the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Mexico. Its compactness makes it easy to conceal and some versions can hold a 30-round magazine, made of lightweight polymer. Theyre American-made guns, Sotomayor told the Union-Tribune. We'll sell those guys so many guns they drown in them!" The M82 can easily penetrate bulletproof vests, concrete walls and even tanks, says its manufacturer Barrett Firearms. The Mexican government claims that more than 68% of illegal guns smuggled across the border are made by those companies, along withBarrett and Witmer Public Safety Group, which acquired Interstate Arms. And yes the California shooter did have a vetted gun but the point being made is that without uniform vetting laws funneling second hand guns into Mexico is a piece of cake. Fast and Furious was a Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) "gunrunning" operation in which the Obama administration allowed guns to be sold to Mexican drug cartels in the hope the weapons would be recovered at crime scenes. Called a "technical" by US military.) June 23, 2022, 4:35 PM. (PS, you may want to arm your Civilians so they can fight the cartel) The underground trade of weapons to Mexico is worth hundreds of millions of dollars annuallywith American guns used to kill tens of thousands of Mexicans each year. You have lost 4,020 Federal, State, and Municipal Police killed by the cartels. Gunmen who left behind at least one M82riflewere seen spraying the armor-plated car ofpolicechief Omar Garcia Harfuch with high-velocity rounds. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers with an Anti-Terrorism Contraband Enforcement Team were screening traffic headed out of Laredo on the Lincoln-Juarez Bridge in October when they noticed a bundle under the carriage of Vasquez's SUV, secured with black ties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War. Why doesnt it stop guns from going through their border into Mexico? It fires the same round as the AK-47 but is significantly shorter and easier to conceal. "Second Amendment Sanctuary" Texas Arms Mexican Drug Cartels I hear Chinese AK-74 types a. An estimated 19% came from California, 15%from Arizona and 25% from other states. A Washington man drove to a U.S. border crossing last year in his teal Ford pickup truck loadedwith a hidden arsenal bound for a Mexican cartel war zone. Then, basic questions: Did you feel they knew what they were buying? Top ATF officials have said in congressional testimony that 90 percent of the guns submitted for tracing by Mexican authorities are from the United States. The sheriff believes cartel coyotes are making between $1,000 and $1,500 for every person brought into the country. That leaves the military as the only ones able to battle thecartels.. Violence in Mexico has claimed nearly 40,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon began a military offensive aimed at overpowering drug cartels. Roger Clemens makes surprise appearance at Astros' Spring Training, Hiker captures 'once-in-a-lifetime' photo of wildlife at Brazos Bend State Park, Houston Rockets poised to reap benefits from Eric Gordon trade, Texas congressman's breaks with GOP could lead to censure, Proposed Texas bill gives tax cuts to heterosexual families only, These bites won big at the Houston rodeo's foodie awards, Heres how you can watch 'Daisy Jones and the Six', Here's what Lina Hidalgo carb-loads before a long run, Houston police ticket man for feeding homeless people. Diaz is one of 360 suspects arrested so far duringOperation Without a Trace, an ongoingcrackdown launched nearly two years ago by Homeland Security Investigationsand U.S. Customs and Border Protection to intercept illegal guns, saidJoseph Lestrange, division chief of Homeland Security's Transnational Organized Crime. In any case, "the trace itself doesn't tell you anything,"' said Lawrence Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the Newtown, Conn.-based firearms industry trade group. Workers repair the facade of City Hall riddled with bullet holes in Villa Union, Mexico, in December 2019, after a gun battle between a heavily armed drug cartel assault group and security forces. Court documents show such purchasers buying as many as 20 AK-47s at a time, paying as much as $11,000 in cash. How about we lock up a guy who sold the cartels weapons used to kill people including Brian Terry. Excuse the pun, but when are you gonna pull the trigger on this? Theycould each face up to 10 years in prison. There, members oftheGulf Cartel and CJNGhave formed a partnership, Jones said. What ARE you waiting on? Mexican security personnel eventually turned him over to cartel gunmen after the arrest prompted a raging gun battle with extremely heavily armed fighters, including some with American-made . We know theyre being illegally trafficked through California into Tijuana. [Theres no way for people to buy guns like those in California, either; they are not ban compliant], In 2018, the homicide rate in Mexico hit a record high of 35,964, spiking 12 percent from the year before, according to the countrys National Institute of Statistics and Geography. Mexico: 18 bodies found after suspected drug cartel gun battle The bullet-ridden bodies of 18 men were discovered in Zacatecas state after apparent confrontation between suspected. A jeweler shows a gun butt made of gold, diamonds, emeralds and rubies to form the Mexican flag, for a 1911 pistol in Culiacan, Sinaloa state on July 12, 2011. So, the ATF was like, "We'll show you! Snowfall is my favorite show centered around drugs - EVER. A special investigative report in 2019 by TheCourier Journal warned of CJNG's ruthlessness in Mexico and its reach across the U.S. into small towns. A 9mm browning pistol has the diamond encrusted initials of LMJ. Coke was originally supposed to make you smarter or something. All Rights Reserved, Fed raises interest rates by 0.5%, the highest rise since 2000, Here are the 14 inductees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Only if your definition of a thing is existing in quiet obsolescence. Guns Drive Cartel Violence in Mexico. favorite guns of drug cartels LMFAO. In fact, according to Newsweek, cartel criminals view American guns as status symbols because, well, they work. "These kids weren't sketchy looking dudes; they were all clean-cut, and some were Hispanic. Sorry, man -- at least 150 Mexican civilians have been hurt or killed by weapons the ATF let enter Mexico. The Bushmaster .223 comes with a 30-round magazine, enabling the shooter to fire all 30 rounds, one for each pull of the trigger, in a minute or less. If our source's store had just followed their guts and refused to sell to the most obviously sketchy buyers, the world would've been a little bit safer. That's the NRA position.". How U.S. As far as American guns being the best. The Hearst survey parallel the findings of a Violence Policy Center report from 2009 documenting 21 gun-trafficking court cases involving 1,700 weapons funneled to Mexico, as well as a federal law enforcement report this year, based on 2,921 guns recovered in Mexico and traced to original U.S. purchases between December 2006 and November 2010. Treasury sanctions Mexican gun trafficker with cartel ties Agents launched 534investigations, seized $29 million and intercepted more than 1,200 guns,4,700 magazines for semi-automatic and automatic weaponsand 700,000 rounds of ammunition headed to Mexico, Lestrange told The Courier Journalthis month. At one point, it was probably four to five of these rifles a week. AG: Oklahoma must fight back against 'invasion' by foreign drug cartels Meanwhile, the Mexican government blames prominent U.S. gun manufacturers for the influx of cartel weaponsin its lawsuit against them in federal court in Boston. Thanks for contacting us. Drug cartels have the flashiest of weapons in their arsenal. The "El Presidente" model is popular in Mexico because it is one of the few guns legally available there, according to the Violence Policy Center. You also said: Homeland Security teamed with the ATF tolauncha confidential tip line asking for help from the public, displaying the number on about 200 billboards near the border,asking for information on illegal guns bound for Mexico. Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan argued against doubts raised by the National Rifle Association that ninety percent of all assault weapons seized in . Drug Cartels: 5 Most Powerful in the World | Desert Hope One of the most dangerous pockets of Mexico City: Teptio, the primary-black market area, under the thumb of the Union Cartel. Man, how awful am I gonna feel if one of these guys gets plugged with a weapon I sold? Guns are funneled into the closest or easiest crossing into Mexico and they come from other states with lax laws. The Bureau Of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), despite sounding like the most fun bureau in history, generally frowns on that kind of thing. MEXICAN drug cartels are using high-powered sniper rifles which fire bullets the size of cigars to take down police helicopters.