From Texas to Mexico City: The Arms Trafficking Route

The Mexican federal Department of Public Security (SSP) detected a route for arms trafficking from Texas, in the United States, to central Mexico. Mexican immigrants, the majority of them residents of the United States with migratory documents in order, are used to transport the arms by sea, air and land. The information from the SSP is consistent with that from the Office of the National Prosecutor General (PGR)), which has detected arms trafficking gangs who recruit immigrants in Florida, California, Arizona, Washington and Texas to purchase and transport arms in small quantities. The leaders of these organizations then sell the arms at four or five times the original price to the the heads of the criminal organizations that operate in our country. In the latest case reported by the SSP, two men from Mexico were arrested: Pedro Vázquez Rojas y Martín Caracheo Espitia, of 42 and 49 years of age, respectively.

Both resided in Dallas, Texas. They were captured at Kilometer 203 México-Piedras Negras highway, near the border between the states of Nuevo León and Coahuila. They transported 2,357 cartridges, two rifles, a telescopic site and two stocks for rifles in a station wagon with Texas license plates. The arsenal was hidden in a box behind the back seat. After the first interrogation, they said that they had received the order to deliver the armament to the city of Cortázar, Guanajuato, but did not know which criminal organization had requested it. The PGR states that 97% of the more than fifteen thousand weapons captured in the last year and a half come from the United States. The other three percent come from different parts of Europe and South America.