Mexican army seizes largest drug-cartel cache of weapons

Mexican army seizes largest drug-cartel cache of weapons ever

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican army says it has made its largest seizure of drug-cartel weapons ever.

Army officials say they confiscated 288 assault rifles, 500,000 rounds of ammunition, numerous grenades and several .50-caliber rifles at a house in the city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Officials say the weapons belonged to the Gulf drug cartel. Three people were detained in Thursday's raid.

Assistant Attorney General Marisela Morales said Friday the arsenal "is the largest in the history of Mexico."

The largest previous bust involved a cache of 280 weapons found in 1984.
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Mexican officials seize arsenal, arrest gang leader
By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Mexico City Bureau
Nov. 7, 2008, 11:25PM

GREGORY BULL ASSOCIATED PRESS
Soldiers stand guard around the arms collected in an operation against the Gulf Cartel on Friday. The weapons cache included 288 assault rifles, 500,000 rounds of ammunition and other assorted arms.

MEXICO CITY — In a seeming one-two punch against one of Mexico's fiercest criminal syndicates, authorities announced Friday that they had seized one of the largest weapons caches in modern Mexican history and arrested a senior gang leader in a city bordering South Texas.

The blows were struck in Reynosa, on the Rio Grande near McAllen, against the Zetas, gunmen linked to the Gulf Cartel, which operates throughout eastern and central Mexico.

Army troops seized 400 pistols and rifles, 500,000 bullets, 165 grenades, several grenade launchers, six heavy machine guns and an anti-tank rocket launcher.

Assistant Attorney General Marisela Morales said the arsenal "is the largest in the history of Mexico."

One of the largest previous seizures involved a cache of 280 weapons found in 1984, according to the Associated Press.

Mexican officials have long complained that most of the weapons used by the criminal gangs are smuggled in from Texas and other border states.

Federal police also captured Jaime Gonzalez, nicknamed "The Hummer," described as a founder of the Zetas, which were originally composed of former army commandos.

Operating out of Reynosa, Gonzalez, 37, directed Zeta operations in Mexico City and seven Mexican states, police said. He is a close collaborator to Zeta leaders Heriberto Lazcano and Miguel Treviño, authorities said. Police said Gonzalez reported to Lazcano.

Gonzalez joined the Mexican army in 1991 and deserted in 1999 to form the Zetas, which have acted as the Gulf Cartel's enforcers. He began his criminal career as the bodyguard for reputed cartel boss Osiel Cardenas, nicknamed "The Friend Killer," who is jailed in Houston awaiting federal trial on drug trafficking charges.

Since Cardenas' extradition last year, the Zetas have been operating on their own, with many of their gunmen drawn from civilian ranks.

The Zetas' battle with gangsters from the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa for control of narcotics smuggling routes into Texas at Laredo caused most of the violence that shook Nuevo Laredo in 2004 and 2005.

The groups reportedly reached a truce last year and the violence in that area of the border and along the Rio Grande to the Gulf has dramatically decreased this year.

Though the group has been relatively quiet in the Mexican border cities, authorities say the Zetas have racked up a high body count this year in battles with drug rivals in all the states Gonzalez reportedly operated.

A war between the Zetas and a gang called The Family has been raging in the suburbs surrounding Mexico City, claiming dozens of lives, many of them police officers.

Officials have also blamed the Zetas for a Sept. 15 grenade attack on an Independence Day crowd in Michoacan, The Family's home state, which claimed nine lives.

Also Friday, state police in Tabasco, on the lower Gulf Coast, announced they had captured a Zeta-linked band of killers and kidnappers. The band was responsible for a number of recent murders, police said. Those included that of a radio personality in the state capital who was shot Sept. 24 as he was hanging a banner calling for the end to violence.

Underworld violence has killed more than 5,000 people since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on Mexico's powerful drug-smuggling gangs upon taking office nearly two years ago.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6101324.html

Private ownership of guns and ammo is illegal in Mexico so most of these guns and the ammo most likely came illegally from the U.S.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit to learn that some of these weapons were sold to the drug cartles by corrupt members of the Mexican military.

Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:16 pm Post subject: ATF: Most Illegal Guns In Mexico Come From U.S.

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ATF: Most Illegal Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

USA TODAY - Online - 8/11/08

EL PASO (AP) — Nearly all illegal guns seized in Mexico come from the United States, the head of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Monday.

ATF acting director Michael Sullivan said investigators have traced 90 to 95% of the weapons found in Mexico to the U.S. Generally, only law-enforcement officers or military personnel can legally possess guns in Mexico.

Sullivan, speaking at the fifth annual Border Security Conference at the University of Texas at El Paso, said the weapons are being traced as part of an effort by the U.S. and Mexico to stop the illegal flow of guns south.
"In Mexico, investigators have provided some tremendous leads ... to weapons trafficking organizations," Sullivan said.

One bust came in May, when the owner of a Phoenix gun shop was arrested on charges that he knowingly sold hundreds of weapons to "straw purchasers" who funneled the weapons to violent drug cartels in Mexico. Two Mexican men accused of helping to set up the sales also were arrested.

Many of the weapons being found in Mexico have been traced to smuggling points in Southern California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, Sullivan said. But he added that weapons are being traced to sellers in "virtually every state, as far north as Washington state."

Sullivan said recent successes in tracking guns thought to be fueling an increasingly violent drug cartel war are attributed to an "e-trace" system that allows officials on both sides of the border to quickly track weapons.
"Tracing where these weapons are from is critical in the early stages," Sullivan said.

The weapons tracking program is only part of the U.S. effort to help curb drug violence in Mexico and in the U.S., Sullivan said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, who also spoke at the border conference Monday, said the FBI is working directly with Mexican officials as part of an anti-kidnapping effort in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. His agency has also developed a task force to focus on the "very few law enforcement officials who assist drug cartels" in the U.S., as well as helping curb the growth of prison gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.

"We have slowed drug trafficking, tracked down violent fugitives and rescued kidnapping victims," Mueller

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... guns_N.htm

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-127529-guns.html+mexico

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"In Mexico, investigators have provided some tremendous leads ... to weapons trafficking organizations," Sullivan said.

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Good grief. Mexico only wants to show that they are cooperating with the FREAKIN MESS THEY HAVE THERE. THE MEXICAN ARMY IS JUST AT CORRUPT AT THE DRUG CARTEL. :evil: