U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirms in a report the routes of entry and type of weaponry that was found in Mexico since 2017
“Cartels are arming themselves through U.S. trafficking channels,” the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed Thursday, following the release of the National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment (NFCTA) by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). In this new document, which analyzes information on weapons circulating in U.S. territory and those leaving for its borders, they recognize that 74% of the weapons used by organized crime groups in Mexican territory arrive illegally -mainly- from the states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.
The destinations for these firearms, which were acquired in the United States and trafficked illegally into Mexico — mostly pistols and rifles — were Mexico’s northern border states of Sonora, Baja California, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, but also Guanajuato, which is located in the center of the country and has been plagued by increasing violence in recent years. In addition, the report notes that the dominant gun trafficking route was the one traced from Arizona to Sonora, with 1,618 weapons detected in high-profile crimes; followed by Texas to Tamaulipas; Texas to Nuevo Leon, Texas to Chihuahua and Texas to Guanajuato. “Eighty-two percent of the firearms traced in Mexico were recovered in a state with a dominant presence of either the Sinaloa (CDS) or Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG),” the document points out.
Since 2022, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has identified these two drug trafficking groups (CDS and CGNJ) as the two cartels “with the largest presence in Mexico. Most of the weapons tracked and identified by U.S. authorities as having arrived in Mexico illegally were recovered “in a Mexican state with a dominant presence of either or both cartels.”
The analysis released Wednesday shows detailed information on the preferences of those acquiring guns in the United States – the vast majority are white males of that nationality – to bring them into Mexico. Criminals, for example, continue to manufacture and use mostly privately manufactured firearms (PMFs): “PMFs generally do not contain serial numbers and are obtained without background checks,” they note.
In addition, handguns and rifles represented the most frequently recovered in Mexican territory between 2022 and 2023: pistols accounted for 50%, rifles almost 33%, revolvers 9% and shotguns accounted for almost 6%. In addition, machine guns accounted for the largest share of annual arms exports in almost every year between 2000 and 2023. “The data shows the severity of the problem, as these firearms were not part of legal exports, but were purchased in the United States and subsequently illegally trafficked and recovered in a crime in Mexico.”
Mexico’s position
The publication of the report comes at a time when tensions between the United States and Mexico are rising as Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of his country approaches. The Republican has issued several threats since his 2024 campaign to the Mexican government to address drug trafficking into its territory, promising to designate drug cartels operating in Mexico as terrorist groups.
On Thursday, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, accompanied by Mexico’s Attorney General, Alejandro Gertz Manero, assured that her goal is to continue collaborating and holding meetings with the U.S. government to mitigate the common problems on both sides of the border, and celebrated that it was the U.S. Department of Justice that publicly recognized the seriousness of the problem: “Just as they are concerned about the entry of drugs into the United States from Mexican territory, we are concerned and worried about the entry of weapons into Mexico. Because the problem of consumption, without saying that there is none in Mexico, is that a large part of it is in the United States, and the violence and loss of life is in Mexico,” said the President.
From 2021 to 2023, requests for firearms tracing by the Mexican government have increased by almost 25%, according to this report. In fact, the results of this assessment, were obtained from the 148,200 requests submitted by the FGR to U.S. authorities. “For many years, successive Mexican governments have identified the United States as the main source of illegally imported firearms. In 2021, the Mexican government estimated that approximately 200,000 firearms of U.S. origin are smuggled into Mexico annually,” they rescue.
In 2021, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador filed a civil lawsuit against 11 arms production and distribution companies in the United States that it accused of engaging in “negligent and illicit business practices that facilitate the illegal trafficking of weapons into Mexico.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the legal action was filed before a federal court in Boston (Massachusetts) with the objective of stopping the flow of illegal weaponry coming into the country from the United States. “The defendant companies are aware that their products are trafficked and used in illicit activities against the civilian population and Mexican authorities,” said the Foreign Ministry.
This request has not been successful, but in January 2024 an appeals court confirmed that U.S. arms manufacturers can be sued, in a landmark ruling that dealt a setback to some of the heavyweights of the arms industry.
The AFT report confirms that weapons traced outside the United States were found in Canada and Guatemala – above Mexico – as well as El Salvador, Brazil, Panama and Honduras.
Original article by Erika Rosete published in El Pais on January 9th, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.