Officials say female gunrunners are arming Mexico's drug cartels

10:46 PM CDT on Friday, May 8, 2009

By Angela Kocherga / 11 News

HOUSTON—The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security has ordered law enforcement agents to step up their searches of cars and trucks headed to Mexico.

The agents’ goal is to catch the gunrunners who arm violent drug cartels south of the border.

But the identities of some of those gunrunners might surprise you: They’re women.

Officials say the cartels often recruit poor women to run the guns, luring them with large sums of money.

One Texas gun dealer says he knows the problem all too well.

He warns women who walk into his store that if they buy a weapon on behalf of someone else, they’re breaking the law.

“And I have lectured a number of such customers over the years. ‘Do you understand what you are getting yourself into here?’ Sometimes they will back off, but more often than not they are afraid of the person who’s put them up to the purchase and will attempt to go through with it,â€