The GunRunners joint investigative project — which includes Frontline, the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Investigative Reporting Project — tracks the entire distribution chain of illegal arms trafficking from Europe to Mexico through the United States.

Investigation Chapters

GunRunners – Introduction to the Joint Project

In the little over four years that Felipe Calderon has been president of Mexico, the Mexican government has registered 34,162 deaths due to organized criminal violence. It has also seized 93,000 weapons, the vast majority of which come from the United States, say Mexican authorities. And while no one knows exactly how many weapons cross…

How the Beltran Leyva, Sinaloa Cartel Feud Bloodied Mexico

When war broke out between the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) and the Sinaloa Cartel in 2008, it was the bloody culmination of the unraveling of the Federation, the most powerful mega-cartel yet seen in Mexico. The split traumitized Mexico not just in terms of the staggering body count, but because once the four Beltran-Leyva…

How Guns are Trafficked Below the Border

On both sides of the border, Mexico’s cartels have small teams that, among other assignments, procure weapons from different sources. However, according to law enforcement officials, it’s unlikely, unnecessary and dangerous for these teams to reach into the United States to develop their own networks or have contact with straw buyers like the ones who…

The Takedown of the ‘Boss of Bosses’

United States and Mexican authorities were on the heels of Arturo Beltran Leyva, alias ‘El Jefe de Jefes’ (The Boss of Bosses), for nearly ten months before they finally surrounded and killed him and several of his bodyguards in a massive four-hour shootout in one of Beltran Leyva’s safe houses in Cuernavaca on 16 December…