Thread: Mexican detained with anti-aircraft machine gun

Mexican detained with anti-aircraft machine gun

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, The Associated Press
12:12 p.m. April 14, 2009

MEXICO CITY — A woman was arrested guarding an arsenal that included an anti-aircraft machine gun – the first weapon of its kind seized in Mexico, police said Tuesday.

The arsenal belonged to a group linked to the powerful Beltran Leyva drug cartel, federal police coordinator Gen. Rodolfo Cruz said. It also included ammunition, five rifles, a grenade and part of a grenade launcher.

Mexican drug cartels, battling a fierce crackdown by soldiers and federal police, have increasingly gotten hold of higher-powered weapons, even military-grade arms such as grenades and machine guns. That has left police – particularly state and municipal forces – grossly outgunned, and many officers have quit following attacks.

Cruz said the confiscated .50-caliber, anti-aircraft machine gun can fire 800 rounds per minute and is capable of penetrating armor from more than 5,000 feet (1,500 meters). Police on a routine patrol Monday found the gun fitted atop an SUV at a house in northern Sonora state.

Authorities did not release any other details about the gun, including its make, where it was manufactured, or where it was sold.

The arrested suspect, Anahi Beltran Cabrera, apparently is not related to the Beltran Leyva clan, Cruz said.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has traced many guns seized at scenes of drug violence in Mexico to U.S. commercial sources. But determining the source of military-grade weapons such as grenades and fully automatic machine guns is more complicated.

The ATF says the grenades are mostly smuggled in through Central America, and have been traced back to the militaries of many countries, from South Korea to Spain and Israel. Some may be leftovers from the Central American civil wars.

Assailants have fired on government aircraft performing anti-drug missions in Mexico in the past, but apparently never with the caliber of weapon found Monday.

In 2006, a helicopter on a federal drug-eradication mission crashed while trying to escape ground fire, and a second helicopter was damaged by gunfire in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero.

Mexico is upgrading its northern and southern border checkpoints in an effort to detect and seize more guns and other contraband, installing equipment that will weigh and photograph each car and truck coming into the country.

President Barack Obama has promised to do more to stop gun trafficking from the United States to Mexico. He has pledged to dispatch nearly 500 more federal agents to the border, along with X-ray machines and drug-sniffing dogs.

Mexico's drug violence has claimed more than 10,650 lives since President Felipe Calderon launched a military-led offensive against trafficking cartels in December 2006.

In March, the government sent thousands more troops to the northern border to quell escalating violence. The government announced Sunday that drug-related homicides fell 26 percent across the country in the first three months of the year, compared to the same period in 2008.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/ ... ndex=82297

How long before the Mexican government and the U.S. media claim that it was bought at

one of Crazy Eddy's Gun Shops in CA., AZ., N.M. or Tx. ?

Authorities did not release any other details about the gun, including its make, where it was manufactured, or where it was sold.

Isn't that a big surprise!! Can't immediately blame the USA for it so in turn they can't release where it came from!!! BS!!!!!

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

How long before the Mexican government and the U.S. media claim that it was bought at

one of Crazy Eddy's Gun Shops in CA., AZ., N.M. or Tx. ?

I am sure that is coming. Maybe they will blame gun shows?

What's a nice girl like you doing with an arsenal like this? Police seize 20-year-old guarding vast weapons cache... including anti-aircraft gun

Originally Posted by bigtex

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

How long before the Mexican government and the U.S. media claim that it was bought at

one of Crazy Eddy's Gun Shops in CA., AZ., N.M. or Tx. ?

I am sure that is coming. Maybe they will blame gun shows?

Last time I was at a gun show I was going to buy a Abrams M1-A1 but I decided to wait until they are on sale.

I hope they release the source so I can go buy one. I would not want to be outgunned when the government goons make their move. Maybe I can trade some of my food stamps for it.

My first shot was with a 30-ot something rifle when I was about 16, which threw me back about 5-feet onto the rear end. Since then I became a pretty good shot sinking beer cans in the Pentagon Lagoon with .22 calibers from Columbia Island Marina. The only hope I have against anti-aircraft guns is not to get on an airplane.

The rest of the story:

Mexican arms race: bigger guns for drug cartels

By ALEXANDRA OLSON,
The Associated Press 12:33 a.m.
April 20, 2009

MEXICO CITY — An escalating arms race among Mexico's drug cartels casts doubt on whether Mexico or the U.S. can stop the flow of weaponry, despite renewed vows last week from presidents of both countries.

Stockpiles captured by Mexican soldiers show that warring traffickers are now obtaining military-grade weaponry such as grenades, launchers, machine guns, mortars and anti-tank rockets.

Some drug gangs have even sought explosive material that some experts worry could be used in car bombs and improvised explosive devices of the kind used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers found 14 sticks of TNT among an arsenal of hundreds of rifles and grenades seized in November from a house in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

But so far, attempts at using bombs have been unsuccessful as drug gangs haven't yet developed the skills to build effective ones, said Stephen Meiners, a Latin America analyst with Stratfor, a private U.S.-based group.
Authorities suspect the Sinaloa cartel tried to kill a Mexico City police officer last year with a homemade bomb that killed only the attacker.

"Once you have a bomb maker that has mastered that skill, unless that bomb maker is caught, he can keep constructing those devices and send them out to be deployed," he said.

One of the most worrisome weapons yet was seized this week just south of Nogales, Ariz.: a powerful gun mounted on the back of an SUV and protected by a thick metal shield. Police said it belonged to one of the Beltran Leyva drug gangs.

Mexican and U.S. authorities disagree on just what type of gun it was. Federal police coordinator Gen. Rodolfo Cruz maintains it was .50-caliber anti-air craft machine gun. ATF, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said it was an unmodified .50-caliber semiautomatic rifle made by TNW, a U.S. firearms manufacturer.

ATF investigators traced the gun – along with seven others seized at a house in Sonora state on Monday – to suppliers in the United States, said Bill Newell, special agent in charge of the ATF in Arizona and New Mexico.

While crudely built, the truck-mounted rifle would give traffickers a powerful advantage against lightly armed police, Newell said: A gunman could protect a whole convoy with sweeping fire while protected by the metal shield.

"Imagine being a two- or three-man police team at a rural checkpoint and these guys roll up with this thing," Newell said. "You'd be slightly intimidated, wouldn't you?"

President Barack Obama says he will crack down on the smuggling of weapons easily purchased lawfully in the United States and then taken to Mexico, which has strict gun-control laws.

But Mexico's drug gangs are clearly digging in for this war, which has already claimed more than 10,670 lives since Calderon deployed 45,000 troops to confront the cartels at the beginning of his presidency in December 2006.

Even as the governments try to choke off the U.S. weapons supply, the gangs are clearly trying to expand their arsenals beyond the assault rifles and semi-automatics they can get in the United States.

These and other, much heavier weapons are readily available on the global black market, particularly from stockpiles left over from Central America's civil wars.

Civilians are increasingly being targeted. In October, assailants hurled a grenade at the U.S. consulate in the northern city of Monterrey. In January, a TV network's offices in the same city were attacked.

The grenades used in both attacks were similar to one thrown into a nightclub in Pharr, Texas, in January, according to the ATF. That one didn't explode.

The agency suspects they came from a Monterrey warehouse where the Gulf cartel had been stockpiling weapons, including South Korean-made K75 fragmentation grenades.

The cartels are still far from obtaining enough arms and training to overpower Mexico's military, which is much better weapons coordination, Meiners said.

On Wednesday, only hours before Obama's visit, 15 gunmen were killed but only one soldier died when a convoy of armed men fought with troops patrolling a drug trafficking hotbed in remote, mountainous Guerrero state.

But local police are outgunned and have left the battle to the military – showing how hard it will be to achieve what Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Obama agreed will be success – a drug war which local police can handle without military help.

"We only have 20 police, and we cannot risk entering in operations against the narcos," said Santiago Bustos, the second-in-command of the police in San Nicolas del Oro, where Wednesday's shootout happened.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/ ... ndex=85302

The weapon pictured is a .30 cal Browning M1919 light machine gun used for ground troop defense, made in the USA decades ago. It probably came from Central America, it looks pretty well used.