HomeNewsAnalysisUS Hemorrhaging Weapons to Mexico, One at a Time
ANALYSIS

US Hemorrhaging Weapons to Mexico, One at a Time

ARMS TRAFFICKING / 8 SEP 2020 BY ZACHARY GOODWIN EN

A recent UN report shows that traffickers move weapons from the United States to Mexico in small quantities, even a single firearm at a time, in a divergence from global arms trafficking trends.

In its latest report on global firearms trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) noted that seizure data from 2016 and 2017 indicated that the flow of firearms at the US-Mexico border "appears to occur in smaller individual batches than the general global pattern."

Exceptionally large seizures — defined as eighteen guns or more — accounted for roughly half of seizures at borders worldwide, whereas seizures of fewer than six firearms accounted for between 60 to 70 percent of all those seized at the US-Mexico border. The largest seizure there was of some 60 weapons. The rest involved fewer than 20 guns, with nearly half of seizures comprising just a single firearm.

SEE ALSO: Coverage of US/Mexico Border

This method of smuggling weapons in small, constant shipments is known as “ant trafficking." While the individual smugglers appear unaffiliated with a criminal group, the large scale of US-Mexico ant trafficking and evidence that weapons are often bought from a centralized source, then dispersed for transport, indicate that Mexican organized crime groups are involved, according to the report.

An examination of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) news releases from May through July show that seizures of one to two firearms occurred regularly, primarily at the Yuma, Arizona, and Del Rio, Texas, points of entry and exit.

InSight Crime Analysis

The steady movement of small shipments of US-bought weapons into Mexico stems from the ease of buying firearms in southern states and the mass movement of cars and trucks across the border.

According to Eugenio Weigend Vargas, the associate director for Gun Violence Prevention at the Center for American Progress, the US-Mexico border’s status as a trade hub makes it easy for traffickers to conceal small quantities of weapons in vehicles headed south.

“You can very easily cross from the United States to Mexico with no questions asked, sometimes not even showing your passport,” Weigend Vargas told InSight Crime.

Additionally, gun shops are plentiful in the US southwest. There are over 7,000 licensed firearms dealers in Texas alone — while all of Mexico has precisely one.

“Armed groups in other parts of the world where such retail sellers don’t exist must rely on black markets, where sellers are more likely to sell larger quantities,” John Lindsay-Poland, coordinator of the Stop US Arms to Mexico project, told InSight Crime. The laws and culture of the United States make “the ant trade the most feasible method of obtaining these weapons,” he said.

SEE ALSO: Lack of US Gun Control Provokes Record Bloodshed in Mexico

Criminal groups in Mexico often obtain weapons via “straw purchases,” when people  without criminal records are recruited to buy the firearms.

A Houston Chronicle investigation in August 2020 tracked 27 weapons used in a Coahuila cartel shootout to southern Texas, where authorities discovered that one straw purchaser had bought 156 weapons over a six-month period from the same gun shop. In batches, he sold the weapons to traffickers, who smuggled them across the border and resold them to cartels for a three-fold profit.

According to the Center for American Progress, border states have also seen a rise in firearms stolen from licensed gun stores.

Recently, daily US-Mexico border traffic has slowed due to the coronavirus pandemic, which could have a temporary dampening effect on the cross-border movement of weapons. At the same time, in the first six months of 2020, there has been a spike in gun thefts, gun-related suicides, and other gun crimes.

“You do see the problems that are usually associated with higher volumes of gun purchases in the United States,” Weigend Vargas told InSight Crime. “So there’s reason to believe that gun trafficking will increase.”

*Photo: Associated Press

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COCAINE / 23 MAR 2022

The United States government has ramped up its pursuit of one of Guatemala’s most enduring drug clans – the so-called…

COCAINE / 7 MAR 2023

The US State Department's annual narcotics report sees coca cultivation spreading, while Colombia remains the top cocaine supplier to the…

FENTANYL / 9 NOV 2021

A recent seizure of fentanyl in Mexico has shed further light on the capacity of organized crime groups to mass-produce…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Rights Watch Draws on InSight Crime's Haiti Coverage

18 AUG 2023

Non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch relied on InSight Crime's coverage this week, citing six articles and one of our criminal profiles in its latest report on the humanitarian…