#gun trafficking

[thedreadpiratejames]

'Private vendor' charged with illegally selling hundreds of guns in Knoxville to New York traffickers

Richard Horne was arrested after a monthslong investigation led by the New York Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fir

and this is why what happens in red states affects crime in blue states

[kuramirocket]

Analysis: American guns are a key driver in the migration crisis. When will the US address it?

This week, US Vice President Kamala Harris will spend two days south of the border, during her first international trip to Guatemala and Mex

(CNN) This week, US Vice President Kamala Harris will spend two days south of the border, during her first international trip to Guatemala and Mexico to meet local leaders and help address the root causes of undocumented migration.

The official agenda is focused on economic development, climate and food insecurity, strengthening the rule of law and deepening bilateral law enforcement cooperation, but violence and the means of violence -- weapons -- seem to be the elephant in the room.

The the origin of many weapons employed in the violence driving them northward in the first place. On average, more than 500 firearms from the US cross the southern border each day. Yet for now, there's little sign that gun smuggling will be a priority at the Vice President's meetings in Guatemala and Mexico.

Armed violence is one of the prominent root causes that push men, women, and children to leave Central America and Mexico and head north. According to the NGO Doctors Without Borders, 62% of migrants arriving at the US southern border said they were exposed to a violent situation during the two years prior to leaving their home country, and three quarters of families with kids arriving at the border say violence, including forced recruitment by gangs, was a key reason for leaving.

About 70% of firearms seized by law enforcement in Mexico were first sourced in the US before being trafficked south of the border, according to data from the US Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) as of December 2019.

According to the Mexican foreign ministry, an estimated 200,000 guns are trafficked from the US into Mexico each year -- an average of more than 500 per day

US authorities do not publish figures for the number of weapons believed to be trafficked, but between 2014 and 2019 the ATF traced more than 70,000 guns from Mexico back to the United States.

The US Government Accountability Office believes the Mexican estimate is the best available; in a recent report, it recommended US agencies such as ATF, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the State Department to increase data collection on weapons smuggling and, most importantly, to develop performance measures to assess the efforts in place to stem the traffic.

The US State Department has declined to detail whether gun smuggling is part of the Vice President's agenda and referred the question to the White House. CNN has reached out to VP Harris' office and is waiting for a response.

The problem no one wants to talk about

Experts say policymakers' discussion of the migration crisis often overlooks the source of the weapons exacerbating it.

"It's pathetic frankly how little attention is spent on this," says Adam Isacson, Director for Defense Oversight at the Washington Office for Latin America, a research and advocacy organization based in the US.

Isacson believes that the particularly fraught narrative around the issue of gun control in the United States -- often fiercely debated among party lines -- is one of the main reasons why leaders spend little time on the issue of guns being trafficked abroad.

Another reason is that most gun regulations are different from state to state, and federal officials responsible for foreign policy or international relations have limited influence on those rules. More than a third of the guns seized in Mexico and traced to the US by ATF were initially purchased in Texas, California and Arizona.

Ioan Grillo, the author of Blood Gun Money -- How America Arms Gangs and Cartels, echoes Isacson: "It's kind of mind blowing to me that it is an enormous quantity of firearms, year after year from the United States to Mexico and so much violence happening in Mexico, and it's frustrating that concrete actions are not taking place."

Grillo, who covered the drug war in Mexico for more than 20 years and is now a New York Times contributor, remembers when in 2012 then-Mexican president Felipe Calderon unveiled a 3-ton advertising board urging the United States to crack down on gun trafficking.

But if Calderon hoped to gain some momentum on this issue with his giant signpost, the tragic results of one such US attempt likely turned American politicians away from trying to tackle guns, Grillo said.

Operation Fast and Furious was a field operation by the Arizona Attorney General's office and the ATF allowing illegal gun sales to track the sellers and purchasers, who were believed to be connected to Mexican drug cartels. But it failed spectacularly -- more than 1,200 guns disappeared into criminal hands and one in particular was used to kill CBP officer Brian Terry in December 2010.

In the aftermath of the operation, 14 ATF and DoJ employees were referred for disciplinary actions and a former deputy assistant AG resigned. Eric Holder, who was Attorney General at the time of the scandal, became the first AG to be cited for contempt of Congress but didn't face criminal prosecution.

"Fast and Furious was just a disastrous operation, and one of its casualties was knocking the gun trafficking issue off the agenda," said Grillo pointing at the little progress or even discussion of it among US policymakers in the last ten years.

"These two issues, gun control and gun smuggling, are linked" says Grillo.

Eventual measures such as requiring universal background checks, limiting the number of guns allowed in a single purchase or a ban US sales of assault weapons could immediately impact the stream of guns across the border.

[kalashni-cola]

19' article using image from 8 years ago.

Implying that RPG's and grenades are coming from the US, I'm sitting here like, PLEASE, if they were I'd have one (or five).

In the entire article there is NO mention of Fast-and-furious debacle.

Nearly all of Mexico's gun violence is committed by illegal firearms coming from the U.S, officials say

In 2018, Mexico saw more than 20,000 gun-related homicides. American firearms are "really important to these criminal organizations, who sta

I love the media trying to imply the gangs not getting their weapons, their automatic weapons, from other countries and corrupt officials in their own country.

[save-our-country]

Did you say no scandals during your presidency, Obama?

[kuramirocket]

Mexico calls on U.S. government, courts for help stemming flow of American guns to drug cartels

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Illegal guns are flowing into Mexico from the U.S. at a record pace, and the Mexican government isn’t happy about that.

EL PASO, Texas – Illegal guns are flowing into Mexico from the U.S. at a record pace, and the Mexican government isn’t happy about that.

Mexican officials say those guns are contributing to rising homicide rates in their country and empowering transnational criminal organizations blamed for most of the 120,000 murders reported in Mexico in the past three years.

“We estimate that half a million weapons are trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico every year. The problem is that all this weaponry is getting to the criminal organizations, giving them very strong firepower to commit all kinds of crimes,” said Mauricio Ibarra Ponce de Leon, Mexico’s consul general in El Paso.

Ibarra says Mexico has strict gun laws and its single army-run gun store only issues a couple of hundred gun licenses per year. Virtually every gun used to commit a crime comes from abroad, and seven out of 10 are traced back to the United States, records show.

A recent case in El Paso federal court tells of a local convicted of dealing firearms without a license. The man allegedly purchased 49 guns and rifles from 12 dealers and was detected driving into Mexico shortly after the purchases. The guns included 9mm Berettas and semi-automatic rifles.

Alleged lack of accountability in similar prior cases led Mexico to sue American gun manufacturers in Massachusetts federal court in August.

“We have never meddled with the Second Amendment. This is not against the rights of the people of the United States to buy and own a gun,” Ibarra said. “We (sued) gun manufacturers and distributors we believe are engaging in negligent commercial practices because they know the weaponry they produce is being trafficked to Mexico and is being used in criminal activity.”

The gun manufacturers are fighting the civil lawsuit, whose next hearing date is Nov. 22.

While not commenting on the litigation, a number of U.S. federal agencies say American guns going into Mexico represent a “national security threat.” Such activity hasn’t waned during the COVID-19 pandemic and has extended into the highly profitable distribution of dangerous synthetic drugs.

Ibarra says his country is actively cooperating with the United States to make a dent on the problem, as evidenced by the exchange of information on U.S. guns found in Mexico.

“In the end, this affects everybody. Many people are dying — civilians” the consul said. “And then we have social aspect of providing medical care for the injured and people having to flee their communities because of the violence.”

Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans have been displaced in the past decade by drug-related violence, according to some non-governmental organizations in Mexico.

[kazifatagar]

Two Taiwanese plead not guilty for arms trafficking

Two Taiwanese men, Cheng Ming Hung, 26, and Hsueh Chun Ta, 33, pleaded not guilty in a Kuala Lumpur court on Monday to three charges of arms trafficking and possession. They were accused of having 14 pistols, a submachine gun, and 900 rounds of ammunition last month. The charges were read in Mandarin before Judge Siti Shakirah Mohtarudin. If convicted, they face severe penalties under Malaysian…

Two Taiwanese plead not guilty for arms trafficking

[iheartvelma]

the problem with guns

[thegoodmexican]

Op-Ed: For Mexico, taking a stand against gun trafficking is a moral imperative

The Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico explains why his country is trying to curb violence by going after U.S. gun manufacturers in court.