A significant number of military-grade weapons that were used last week in a firefight to free El Chapo’s son from custody in Mexico likely came from suppliers in the United States, arms experts said.
“When we’re looking at specific calibers of weapons, and specific types of weapons, they overwhelmingly do come from the U.S. commercial market,” Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical analysis for geopolitical intelligence company Stratfor, told the Washington Examiner.
“This is an ongoing problem,” an official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told the Washington Examiner. “It’s been with us for a while.”
Mexican security forces on Thursday reportedly targeted Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán López’s son, Ovidio Guzmán López, based on a warrant from the United States. The Sinaloa cartel launched a massive response.
Videos from the scene in Culiacán, a city in the western Sinaloa state, show gunmen armed with high caliber sniper rifles, light machine guns, and customized assault rifles engaged in a fierce firefight with Mexican authorities.
One video shows a gunman firing what appears to be a semi-automatic .50 caliber sniper rifle, an extremely powerful weapon capable of disabling vehicles, and destroying artillery shells in a single shot.
Another featured armed men riding in a truck with a mounted .50 caliber M2 machine gun, which has been in use by the U.S. military since the 1930s.
TRIPWIRES & TRIGGERS-Intense violence rocked Culiacan, Mx, yesterday as Government authorities captured two sons of Chapo Guzman, Sinaloa Cartel. Hours after, they were released, and the world watched as a President coward and a nation kneeled to criminals/terrorists. pic.twitter.com/vMixS5ZKlp
— Jaeson Jones (@jaeson_jones) October 18, 2019
A third featured what appears to be a variant of the M249 SAW light machine gun and a shoulder-fired rocket launcher.
Stewart was not surprised to see so much high-end military equipment being used in a cartel shootout.
“We see significant firefights all the time between these cartel groups and the military police and with each other,” he told the Washington Examiner.
“You see videos all the time of them just cutting loose with automatic weapons, .50 cals, hand grenades, RPGs. It’s fairly common.”
The U.S. is a key source for these weapons.
According to a 2016 report from the Government Accountability Office, 70% of firearms seized in Mexico and traced by authorities originated in the United States. Guns legally bought in the U.S. civilian market are trafficked illegally, primarily over the southwest border for use by criminal elements. High-caliber rifles and shotguns are particularly popular.
So, too, are 9mm, .40, and .45 caliber pistols, since they are not available on the civilian Mexican market, Stewart said.
Video footage here shows a gunman lying on the ground firing a weapon in the city of Culiacan, Sinaloa today. Rumors suggest that one of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons Ívan Archivaldo has been captured and possibly killed following a fierce gun battle in the city…. pic.twitter.com/ElCd94lc5n
— Deborah Bonello (@mexicoreporter) October 17, 2019
Cartels exploit a variety of other sources for harder to find military equipment, experts have noted. China, for example, supplies fully-automatic weapons and hand grenades unavailable in the U.S. civilian market. Corrupt officials and deserters in the Mexican security forces also have supplied weapons.
Some materiel dates to the Cold War era, when the United States and the Soviet Union supplied Central American partners with weapons that now are being used by the cartels. In some cases, weapons are acquired locally. For example, cartel hitmen are known to use .380 pistols purchased in Mexico with sound suppressors manufactured locally, Stewart said.
No matter their source, the weapons brought victory to the cartel. Guzmán reportedly was in police custody, but was released in an effort to stem the violence.
“The capture of one criminal cannot be worth more than the lives of people,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday. “This decision was made to protect citizens … you cannot fight fire with fire.”
