Illegal Guns Flood Mexico as Drugs Flow North to U.S.
Day to Day, May 26, 2005 · Arms smuggling from the United States into Mexico has become a big factor in an increased level of violence south of the border. Mexico's gun laws are stricter than those in the United States, so as illegal drugs flow north into America, illegal weapons go south into Mexico.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4667960U.S. Guns Behind Cartel Killings in Mexico
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 29, 2007; Page A01
TIJUANA, Mexico -- Assassins blasted Ricardo Rosas Alvarado, a member of an elite state police force, with a blizzard of bullets pumped out of AK-47 assault rifles.
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The high-powered guns used in both incidents on the evening of Sept. 24 undoubtedly came from the United States, say police here, who estimate that 100 percent of drug-related killings are committed with smuggled U.S. weapons.
The guns pass into Mexico through the "ant trail," the nickname for the steady stream of people who each slip two or three weapons across the border every day. The "ants" -- along with larger smuggling operations -- are feeding a rapidly expanding arms race between Mexican drug cartels.
The U.S. weapons -- as many as 2,000 enter Mexico each day, according to a Mexican government study -- are crucial tools in an astoundingly barbaric war between rival cartels that has cost 4,000 lives in the past 18 months and sent law enforcement agencies in Washington and Mexico City into crisis mode.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/28/AR2007102801654.htmlUS guns arm Mexico's drug wars
"There is a contradiction," says a Mexican senior official speaking on condition of anonymity. "The US says they are so worried about drug trafficking, but the US is the one arming the drug traffickers."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0719/p01s01-woam.htmlGuns: The bloody US-Mexico market
With over 2,100 deaths between January and October 2007 related to drug trafficking and the use of weapons purchased in the US, Mexico pins its hopes on the future success of the Merida Initiative to combat drug and gun trafficking.
By Sam Logan for ISN Security Watch (31/10/2007)
As news and rumors swirl around the current status and future success of the Merida Initiative, a plan to combat narco-trafficking in Mexico, those who argue the plan's merits can agree on at least one point: The front line of the so-called war on drugs has moved north from Colombia to the US-Mexican border, but the focus on drugs has overshadowed an element of the regional black market that is just as important.
Mexican authorities now estimate that during the administration of former Mexican president Vicente Fox (2000 to 2006), some 2,000 guns per day entered Mexico. That works out to about 1.4 guns per minute. During that same period, the Fox administration seized 8,088 guns of the estimated 4,380,000 that entered the country, representing 0.18 percent of all the arms illegally smuggled into Mexico over six years, according to Mexican daily La Reforma.
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=18300