Mexico's army is finding weapons like belt-fed machine guns, rocket launchers and grenades that are not sold for civilian use in the United States.

Mexico wants an urgent investigation into how U.S. military-grade weapons are increasingly being found in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, Mexico’s top diplomat said Monday.

Mexico’s army is finding belt-fed machine guns, rocket launchers and grenades that are not sold for civilian use in the United States.

“The (Mexican) Defense Department has warned the United States about weapons entering Mexico that are for the exclusive use of the U.S. army,” Foreign Relations Secretary Alicia Bárcena said. “It is very urgent that an investigation into this be carried out.”

The Mexican army said in June that it had seized 221 fully automatic machine guns, 56 grenade launchers and a dozen rocket launchers from drug cartels since late 2018.

The military-grade U.S. weaponry — which cartels have bragged about and openly displayed on social media — poses a special challenge for Mexico’s army, which along with police and the National Guard already faces cartels operating homemade armored vehicles and bomb-dropping drones.

    • Deceptichum
      1•5 months ago

      Just reading that and it doesn’t exactly sound like how you’re implying it is.

      They put trackers in the guns to in theory be able to follow the flow of them and see how they were getting to Mexico.

      Technically it’s selling them (indirectly) but realistically it’s goal was to stop the sale long term.

      • TragicNotCuteEnglish
        11•5 months ago

        During Operation Fast and Furious, the largest gunwalking probe, the ATF monitored the sale of about 2,000 firearms, of which only 710 were recovered as of February 2012. A number of straw purchasers have been arrested and indicted; however, as of October 2011, none of the targeted high-level cartel figures had been arrested.

        Critically, the GPS battery life was only a few days and the GPS weapon “tracker” signal was routinely lost especially in car trunks.[8] This lack of technical sophistication and failure of GPS as a tracker, were the major reasons for Fast and Furious failure as an ATF operation.

        Call it what you want and imply what you want, it was a critical failure by all account that ultimately armed the cartels further.

        • Deceptichum
          -5•5 months ago

          That’s it? A whopping 2,000 guns from the country that has close to 400 million guns floating around?

          There are more fucking guns than people and you’re acting like 2,000 guns being deliberately put out there is a big deal?

          A failure yes, but really not a big deal compared to what results it could have led to if the GPS trackers worked a bit better.

          • TragicNotCuteEnglish
            9•5 months ago

            We gave the cartel 2000 guns they didn’t have before and got no meaningful arrests. It’s a failure full stop and I wonder why you’re trying to defend it. I’m pissed my tax dollars paid for this nonsense.

            • @bhmnscmm@lemmy.world
              8•5 months ago

              I’m with you. It’s absolutely crazy to me how many people blow this off as a non-issue.

              It shouldn’t even be a partisan thing. What kind of mindset must one have to say giving 2000 guns to cartels for absolutely no benefit isn’t a failure?

            • Deceptichum
              -6•5 months ago

              I agree it’s a failure, but as far as American failures go this is the most insignificant thing ever.

              And let’s be honest, this operation was 0.0000000000000000000000000001% of your taxes. You’ve got far bigger issues to be pissed about.

              I wonder why you’re trying to make this a big deal?

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】
      -16•5 months ago

      Such tired nonsense. Republicans made this a scandal. It’s a perfectly valid law enforcement strategy and was otherwise effective. Next you’ll be linking stories about Benghazi.