", The cartels were smart enough to pick buyers who wouldn't instantly set off alarm bells (aka clean-cut and often white). ", "The ATF said, 'Don't refuse 'em, just let 'em go. When the Coen Brothers needed someone to show The Dude how to really roll, they could turn to only one man: Hall of Fame professional bowler Barry Asher. While they had been gun-running since 2006, a 2011 report by the inspector general criticized the agency for dedicating too many resources to busting straw purchasers and not enough at busting the cartel guys doing the buying. Theycould each face up to 10 years in prison. Officials found 17 handguns in his car. ATF agents say almost 100 of those weapons have turned up at cartel-related crime scenes in. ", Once the purchase was completed and the "customer" left the store, " the money was counted with the cameras watching it. The Most Dangerous Cartels To Ever Exist - Grunge.com Mexico Sues U.S. Gun Makers For Crime While Fueling Violent Cartels Drug Cartels: 5 Most Powerful in the World | Desert Hope From 2006 to 2013, the program expanded until it exploded into the stupidly named "Fast And Furious" scandal. Since the federal law banning assault weapons expired in 2004, so-called "straw purchasers" have flooded U.S. gun stores in the Southwest, mostly in Texas and Arizona, sweeping up these and other weapons. Why wouldnt *that* be the most obvious area to apply enforcement pressure, instead of law abiding gun owners hundreds or thousands of miles away on the far side of the country? The California Maniac could just as easily bought a second hand gun and instead of killing people with it could have made handsome profit by selling it and more like it to Mexico because he is not connected by paperwork to what he is selling. Whether it's the Juarez Cartel or Sinaloa's 'Chapo' Guzman, one thing the cartels in Mexico and South America have in common are flashy weapons. Drug cartels have the flashiest of weapons in their arsenal - Chron The government accuses gun makers and suppliers of knowingly flooding the market with firearms attractive to drug cartels. At one point, it was probably four to five of these rifles a week. I mean the cartels. An estimated 19% came from California, 15%from Arizona and 25% from other states. It is also one of the weapons of choice fordrugcartels, according to theMexicangovernment, which this week filed a lawsuit in theUS District Court in Massachusetts against the company and 10 other gun manufacturers. It got to the point where we would give the ATF our cellphone numbers. In November 2009, the ATF's Phoenix field office launched an operation in which guns bought by drug-cartel straw purchasers in the U.S. were allowed to "walk" across the border into Mexico. In fact, according to Newsweek, cartel criminals view American guns as status symbols because, well, they work. Get the best of Cracked sent directly to your inbox! And then paperwork started. Cartel "Narco Tanks," Heavy Weapons On Full Display During Battle Over I mean all the enforcement is on the American side, very little exists on the Mexican side. Worried that weapons purchases for drug cartels might fuel more calls for tougher U.S. gun control laws, gun-rights advocates insist that existing laws are sufficient to control such trafficking. How could the ATF make selling firearms to the cartels a more pleasurable process? By Jared Olson. Gun Companies The lawsuit over drug cartel violence could be part of a bigger change on guns. What i believe is that If i want to sale you ballons ,i give you a good price nd you will greatly say my ballons are the best .. quoteTijuanas Director of Public Safety, Marco Antonio Sotomayor, says most of the guns flowing into his city come from north of the border.quote. Agents launched 534 investigations, seized $29 million and intercepted more than 1,200 guns, 4,700 magazines for semi-automatic and automatic weapons and 700,000 rounds of ammunition headed to. We sat down with "James," who worked at one of the gun stores the ATF ordered to sell firearms to drug cartels. Dear Mexico: clean up your own house before telling us how to take care of ours.. . 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? So CA is itself one of those neighboring States that is (cough) responsible for illegal firearms/use across a boundry? 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. Do it.' The recent California shooting was done by a maniac who drove for almost 12 hours to commit crime. National Police Chief Gen. Oscar Naranjo, holds a handgun seized to Colombian drug lord and former paramilitary leader Pedro Guerrero Castillo, known as "Cuchillo" (Knife), as he speaks during a press conference in Bogota, Colombia, on December 29, 2010. Mexico's drug war fought with drones, human shields, gunships In addition to weapons from the States working better, Mexico cartels view firearms as status symbols, retired DEA agent Jack Riley told The San Diego Union-Tribune: It is really important to these criminal organizations, who stay in business by the threat of violence and through the use of violence; and the tools that they prefer to do that with are American-made guns.. Take a look at some of the flashiest weapons you'll ever see in the slideshow above. Officers foundthree rifles, eight pistols, several magazines and more than 4,700 rounds, including a bag of bullets under Vasquez's seat and more ammunition wrapped in tape and plastic and tucked inside a hidden compartment between the exterior and interior paneling. If you want to keep guns out of the country, you do not appear to be making any real effort at it. Photo gallery: The top ten favorite guns of the Mexican drug cartels But, one boy was a white boy who told me he had served. 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. 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. 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. Into Mexico.. Our own government is gifting military weapons to Mexico & those arms are being used by the cartels. Violence in Mexico has claimed nearly 40,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon began a military offensive aimed at overpowering drug cartels. Hell, our source might have sold El Chapo that very rifle. Now, he's militarized the country. More than 40 people have been charged in the Upstate of South Carolina as part of a drug-trafficking case known as "Las Seoritas," according to Attorney General Alan Wilson . Two of those weapons were tracked to the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent: The whole mess immediately became an embarrassment for the Obama administration. He claimed he didn't know the names of the gun buyers or their cartel affiliations. This small-town Oregon bricklayer had a side hustle: Gun supplier for "The brand names are inconsequential what matters is that our laws aren't being enforced," said Andrew Arulanandam, director of public affairs for the National Rifle Association. 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. You never cease to make an absolute fool of yourself. Now I cannot make this any more simple for you to understand. Judicial Watch: Justice Department Documents Reveal Widespread Use of While this is isn't based on one true story, it follows a teenager at the forefront of the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles. Mexican Cartels Are Arming Themselves to the Teeth With Powerful US Sniper Rifles High-powered .50-caliber rifles can be purchased legally in most of the U.S. and they keep showing up in the. Also, follow us on Facebook, and we'll follow you forever. Mexican cartels exploiting border chaos to smuggle fentanyl into US By Isabel Vincent June 10, 2022 3:53pm Updated Mexican drug cartels are taking advantage of the chaotic influx of migrants. All of the straw buyers were arrested in one fell swoop in 2011. 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. 2. The Hearst survey of court cases found these weapons among the top 10: The Belgian-made FN Herstal Five-SeveN: Some versions of this pistol hold 10 rounds; others have a 20-round capacity. This article would have you believe the American guns are coming from civilian sources.. one point left out of the article is that the cartels also like American hand grenades. Robert Evans just wrote a book, A Brief History of Vice, where he experiments with strange ancient drugs. 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. AK-47 favorite gun of cartels - Deseret News We can reduce the carnage if pols have the guts to act, Eric Holder (@EricHolder) August 5, 2019, Enough-time for real action. 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. The flow of high-caliber arms smuggled across the porous U.S. border has alarmed Mexican officials and few weapons are as powerful as the U.S.-made M82 semi-automatic rifle increasingly favored by . A 9mm browning pistol has the diamond encrusted initials of LMJ. Sorry not in todays world American guns have some of the shittyist workmanship that I have ever seen compared to the U.S. guns that were made in the distant past and even those were often nothing when compared to finely made European guns. ", After a couple weeks of escalating sketchiness, they reported the straw purchasers to the ATF, who immediately showed up to shut this shit d-, Sean Rayford/Getty Images News/Getty Images, Nope! Thirty-four. That figures to 17.6 percent of the 29,000 figure for guns seized in Mexico, as given by the country's attorney general. Serial numbers really do tell a story. Ban assault weapons, high capacity magazines, body armor, silencers. John Boch, you said: Miguel Diaz Calderon never made it out of Texas. Why havent you closed your northern border with a massive military presence to stop south bound smuggling? Barretts were basically the only gun the cartels wanted, and while they are both ridiculous and rich, we get the strange feeling these weren't meant as toys " it started to get more and more severe. 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. "It's hard to pinpoint exactly where we think a particular load (of guns) we seized was going,"Lestrange said. In 2019, a record 68 such weapons were captured. You took their 4473 and transcribed all that, then it asked what type of transaction it was, how many 100s, how many 50s, how many 10s, ones. Its all too easy to legally ship a batch of guns to a South American Corrupt Government that just happens to have some come up missing and they get sold to drug cartels for big bucks. One thing struck him as particularly odd: " as I'm ringing up the transaction, he has one of those little drawstring backpacks. The federal report also concluded that of 2,921 traced guns, 1,470, or 50 percent, were from Texas. Called a "technical" by US military.) And follow Robert on Twitter. He sent in the federal police along with army units in an attempt to eliminate high value . He pulls a paper bag out, takes out 10 grand in cash rubber-banded in thousand dollar increments. SALT LAKE CITY A Utah woman is heading to federal prison for buying dozens of high powered rifles for Mexican drug cartel members. There must be a mistake. In fact these Paperwork-Americans are even more American than us evil racists! These firearms couldnt possibly coming through California. "I was working in a very large gun store in Phoenix at the time, and we sold everything. Mexican cartels and their weapons | SOFREP - SOFREP | Military Culture I'm a projects reporter, examining key education topics and other local issues. 2- Declare Antifa a domestic terror organization. A Draco, purchased in Joshua, Texas, near Forth Worth, was used in the attack and shooting death of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico in February. Are ticket costs pricing Houston Astros fans out of Opening Day? Mexico targets US arms dealers for supplying weapons to Mexican drug November 23, 2022 Contact: Phone Number: (571) 387-3831 For Immediate Release Debt Collector and Drug Distributor for Cartel Connected, Violent, Drug Distribution Ring, Sentenced to 10 years in Prison Previous slide Next slide Handgun in leather holster Plastic bag of fentanyl pills Move slider to item #1 Move slider to item #2 btw Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate. 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. The place is called La Leche and it continues to be one of Vallarta's tourist attractions. You try and keep it as normal as possible; you don't want to spook him because then everything's shot as well. Mexico's Weapons Seizures Map Out Cartel Firepower - InSight Crime . 8. MEXICO: Stop the flow of Immigrants going north and maybe we will do something about guns going south across the border. It was weird that, one, he came in with $10,000 cash. Exactly, if America had adopted Mexican-style gun control, it probably wouldve had as many mass shootings as Mexico has had in the past 30 years. Build the wall. El Mencho:Daughter of Mexican cartel boss sentenced to US prison for violation of Kingpin Act. Of theguns used in crimes in Mexico and traced back to the United States, about 41% camefrom Texas, he said. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to . Most of the military grade stuff comes from South America and can be traced to US and Soviet shipments to a few countries back in the late 80's. They were used to set up or. We know theyre being illegally trafficked through California into Tijuana. Obama supplied guns to mexican gangs, and were also used in Paris France terrorist attack. And how many bad guys did they get? Drug cartels have been using monster type armored cars for about 15 [most of his city is north of the border so that shouldnt be a surprise. U.S. agents also are helping train Mexican police on investigative techniques and evidence collection and improving intelligence sharing, Lestrange said. They weren't tracking them well enough; everyone made it over the border. Meanwhile, check out this picture of a gun cache from El Chapo's hide-out: That's a Barrett .50 caliber rifle, confirmed to have gotten to Mexico via the ATF's gun-running program. California gun-control activists credited that state's low total to strict state firearms laws that severely limit sales of military-style weaponry. Where does Mexico really get its guns? | Fox News Acosta and others like him across the. In fact, according to Newsweek, cartel criminals view American guns as status symbols because, well, they work. The reason the cartels had use for the Barrett is chilling: When you're as large as, say, Los Zetas, your "turf wars" involve the Mexican army. Mayor: HISD has two optionsclose school or be taken over, Rare photos show 2 ocelots crossing South Texas road, Willie Nelson pays lovely tribute to another country legend. I got a phone call one day on the shop line, and a guy was looking for a Barrett .50 cal, which is not a crazy weapon in terms of how available they are.". Since joining the Tulsa World in 1999, I have been a three-time winner of Oklahoma's top award for investigative . "The gun traffickers supplying Mexican drug organizations have become more selective and sophisticated in the weapons they acquire,"' said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, which extensively studied the issue. is on the streets after a gun battle between Mexican security forces and suspected cartel gunmen, in Villa Union, Mexico . I came here to say this. NUEVO LAREDO, MexicoOn March 24 . Actively providing firearms to one of the most dangerous organizations in the world and What ARE you waiting on? You have entered an incorrect email address! To intercept more Mexico-bound guns, the U.S. Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy of 2020, of the National Drug Control Policy, vowed that "the United States will improve criminal-intelligence and information-sharing for illegal weapons trafficking and enhance cooperation with international partners.". "As a result of the continued use and possession of many of these guns, residents of Mexico will continue to be killed and injured by these guns, and the public will continue to fear for their health, safety, and welfare," Americanattorneys wrote in the suit on behalf of Mexico. Agents launched 534 investigations, seized $29 million and intercepted more than 1,200 guns, 4,700 magazines for semi-automatic and automatic weapons and 700,000 rounds of ammunition headed to. How does the cartel feel about branded accessories? All the illegal purchases followed the same basic pattern, "They would always call, because they always wanted to know the exact amount ahead of time -- usually same day -- and make sure we had one in stock. Bingeworthy Mafia and Drug Cartel TV Series - Really Into This Pass universal background checks, end loopholes: gunshow and Charleston. The gun should not be in the hands of civilians, the official said. Body armour and load-bearing equipment were used by many cartel members, including examples marked 'Marina' (Marines) or 'Polica Estatal' (State Police). But, who gave the arms to the Mexican cartels? 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. For our source, who did nothing but exactly what the law told him, watching the bloody aftermath of the scandal was traumatic: "Our initial thought was how many of these can be pointed across the border at our guys?