So loosely regulated and available is American ammunition that Mexican smugglers are simply dropping over on day shopping visas to cruise a bounty of stores within the 25-mile deep commercial zone where they can legally wander. Judging by prosecutions and seizures, the day-trippers are doing their part to bring home huge quantities of bullets. The one law that applies to ammunition purchases … [Read more...] about Gunrunning to Mexico Part IV: Bingeing on bullets
Other Border Security Coverage
Gunrunning to Mexico Part III: Buyers remorseless
How “straw purchasers” in the U.S. find a big bang for their buck for Mexico’s drug thugs Crucial to the flow of guns into Mexico are networks of straw buyers — U.S. citizens with clean criminal backgrounds bankrolled by the cartels to shop for guns. Two kinds stalk South Texas: ordinary people with perhaps only a sneaking suspicion about who’s ultimately paying them; and those much more … [Read more...] about Gunrunning to Mexico Part III: Buyers remorseless
Gunrunning to Mexico Part II: The sellers: merchants torn between profit and conscience
How flexible laws, a blissful ignorance and profit motive enable U.S. gun retailers to feed Mexico’s bloody civil war International gun trafficking prosecutions against licensed gun dealers are relatively rare. The law provides more protection to sellers than to any other part of the supply chain delivering weapons to Mexico’s drug cartel foot soldiers. Much of the current U.S. law … [Read more...] about Gunrunning to Mexico Part II: The sellers: merchants torn between profit and conscience
Gunrunning to Mexico Part I: Gunrunner’s Land of Plenty
These stories document Mexico’s black market hunger for American guns. The hidden cross-border trade is hardly a new phenomenon and for decades has occupied a back burner in the national policies of both countries. But with Mexico’s drug war body count surpassing 6,000 in a single year, 2008, a figure that almost flatters the number of American dead in Iraq, the weapons smuggling issue has been … [Read more...] about Gunrunning to Mexico Part I: Gunrunner’s Land of Plenty
Gun running to Mexico
A four-part series tracing the smuggling of guns from American retailers to Mexico's warring drug cartels The story of how several guns bought legally from a Laredo gun dealer ended up at the killing grounds deep in Mexico where narcotics traffickers murdered four Aguascalientes police officers (photo at left) illuminates how and why armaments from American gun store retailers were stocking … [Read more...] about Gun running to Mexico
Mexican cartels go truly global
From Africa to the Middle EastImagine Mexican drug cartel operatives strolling with robed business prospects in the souks of Damascus and Tehran. Or cash-laden Mexican traffickers setting up business offices in African cities like Kinshasa and Accra. Or maybe even Mexican drug syndicate emissaries plying the streets of Baghdad outside the Green Zone. There’s nothing fictional about any of … [Read more...] about Mexican cartels go truly global
Iran Reaches Out to Mexico
April 9, 2009 The Global Post After strengthening ties with other Latin American countries, Iran pushes for closer ties with Mexico. SAN ANTONIO, Tex. — While U.S. leaders remain fixated on Mexico’s drug war, Iran has quietly sought to establish closer ties to Mexico, with almost no notice. Over the last year, Iran has been pushing for an expansion of trade and diplomatic ties between … [Read more...] about Iran Reaches Out to Mexico
Mexico’s drug war refugees
A four-part series from an undeclared war With powerful warring drug trafficking organizations and Mexico’s military laying siege to one another by 2009, a growing number of citizens saw only one way to survive: by fleeing over the American border. They have arrived with gruesome stories of kidnap, torture, extortion and random brutality at the hands of ruthless trafficking groups. The arrival … [Read more...] about Mexico’s drug war refugees