The Mexican government is demanding that the United States look into the claims that military-grade weaponry are being transferred from American stockpiles to the hands of cartels.
The Mexican military has reported finding weapons like belt-fed machine guns, rocket launchers, and grenades that are not easily found in the U.S. civilian market, despite the Mexican government's allegations that numerous civilian-grade firearms have crossed the southern border of the United States and ended up in the hands of criminals.
“The [Mexican] Defense Department has warned the United States about weapons entering Mexico that are for the exclusive use of the U.S. army,” Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretary Alicia Bárcena said this week. “It is very urgent that an investigation into this be carried out.”
The Mexican military said in June that since the end of 2018, it has taken 221 fully automatic firearms, 56 grenade launchers, and 12 rocket launchers from drug gangs.
The Mexican government is alarmed by the possibility that the cartels may possess these potent weapons since they have been difficult for the military and law police to defeat and dismantle. The cartels have previously demonstrated a certain level of ingenuity by attaching thick metal plates to their trucks to make homemade armored cars, inventing homemade bombs and hiding them beneath roads, and employing drones to drop explosives on their adversaries.
Last year, Ovidio Guzmán López, the son of convicted Sinaloa drug cartel kingpin Joaquín Archivaldo “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, was the target of a combined military and law enforcement operation in Mexico. However, cartel members fiercely retaliated against the arrest, engaging in a fierce street fight.
During the arrest operation in Culiacán last year, Mexican Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval alleged that cartel gunmen used six.50-caliber machine guns to fire on the military personnel and law police personnel in Mexico. Eventually, according to Mr. Sandoval, the Mexican army had to dispatch Black Hawk helicopters to attack more than twenty dozen cartel vehicles, including trucks fitted with gun platforms. Two of the military helicopters were forced down by cartel fighters, according to Mr. Sandoval, with "a significant number of impacts" to both aircraft.
In addition to 19 alleged gang members, ten Mexican military personnel and one Culiacán police officer perished in the conflict from the previous year.
U.S. ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar verified on Monday that the matter was raised by Mexican representatives during discussions last week. Although Mr. Salazar acknowledged that he was unaware of the issue earlier, he promised that the US will take action to allay the worries of its Mexican colleagues.
“We are going to look into it, we are committed to working with [Mexico’s Defense Department] to see what’s going on,” Mr. Salazar said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Mexican colleague, Ms. Bárcena, discussed "bilateral efforts to counter human smuggling and arms trafficking" at their meeting last week, according to a press release issued by the U.S. State Department on Saturday. Mr. Miller did not address the topic of arms trafficking again, nor did he say that the talks concerned worries about military-grade weaponry falling into the hands of cartels.
NTD News contacted the United States. State Department requested additional information regarding the claims made by the Mexican government, but as of the time of publication, no answer had been received.
Additionally, NTD News contacted the U.S. Department of Defense for comment, including to inquire as to whether the Mexican government had submitted any records pertaining to weapons that were found and might be compared to weapons stocks in the United States. By the deadline, the DOD had not responded, just like the State Department.
Concerns about military-grade guns coming from the US to the cartels are being expressed by the Mexican government, which is simultaneously suing civilian gun makers for allegedly aiding in the trafficking of firearms.
A U.S. appeals court decided on Monday that the Mexican government's case against several American gun manufacturers and distributors may move on, overturning a previous court's decision that said the manufacturers and distributors were immune from legal action under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
