In a radical change in their approach to arms trade, The government of Mexico will begin to demand the extradition of arms dealers from the United Statesso that they also pay in Mexican territory for the introduction of war equipment used by the drug cartels in thousands of murders in recent years, high-level government sources confirmed MILLENNIUM.
Intent, detailed federal officials consulted, is to ask the Joe Biden government to supply a dozen Mexican and American arms dealers for free or that they are still serving their sentences in prisons in that country so that they can be tried in Mexico for their responsibility in the violence the country has witnessed.
The front-line officials stated they also want to set the precedent that the Mexican government intends to vigorously prosecute those who trade guns, even if they committed the crime in the United States. where illegal possession is punishable by lax penalties ranging from one to ten years in prison. In Mexico, the sentence is 30 years.
Accused of “Fast and Furious”, in the crosshairs
Among the initial targets of this petition are some of the defendants in 2011’s failed “Fast and Furious,” it was detailed. That operation, which ended with a murdered Border Patrol agent, was initiated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) as part of the plan to sell weapons to suspected criminals. for the purpose of tracing information about the illegal purchase and sale of weapons in Mexico.
Between 2009 and 2011, at least 2,500 weapons entered the national territory according to this plan. They eventually ended up in the hands of the cartel killers as planned, but without the expected cascade of arrests.
Many of them have been arrested, but like other gun trafficking cases in the United States, they received mean sentences of between 5 and 10 years, some even shorter.
One of the traffickers targeted by the federal government is Daniel Francisco Cruz Morones, who pleaded guilty in 2012 to illegally buying weapons and intending to allow their traffic to Mexico by a court in San Diego.
As an example of the laxity with which crime is pursued in the United States, he was released just four years after participating in the delivery of weapons to the Zetas Cartel.
The list of potentially extradited persons is currently being analyzed in the Mexican government’s security zones, but like Morones, there have been a dozen cases of high-profile human traffickers who have introduced hundreds of weapons into Mexican territory over the past decade and are reported by US authorities. have done that. detailed information – including their address – about ever being arrested and convicted.
For example, Efreín González, a Mexican-American related to the Los Zetas cartel, was arrested after an arms trade investigation that began in New Mexico in 2011.
Before falling into the hands of the US Justice Department, the Agency for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF, for its acronym in English) put him on his most wanted list and put a $ 10,000 bounty on his head. He was also wanted for sexual assault.
Another example of international arms dealers are brothers Ismael and Carlos Almada Castrillo, who bought all kinds of weapons for the Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) cartel, including powerful military grenades and rifles, through electronic trading platforms such as e-Bay and PayPal as reported MILLENNIUM early December.
Carlos was arrested in Mexico in September 2019 and found dead in his Puente Grande cell in March this year. While Ismael is out on bail waiting for the investigation against him to continue in Los Angeles.
Another is Javier Reséndez, who ran a cell using money obtained from the sale of drugs, bought weapons for an unidentified cartel and brought them overland from Texas to Mexico. He was arrested in 2014 and his 7-year sentence is ending this year. According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he is currently in a federal prison in West Virginia.
Like those, other cases give a glimpse of the abundant material of characters against whom the Mexican government could press charges, such as the mayor, police chief, and a Columbus, New Mexico politician who died in 2011. They took advantage of their position in the government to purchase 200 weapons that they claimed were for their use but that they planned to sell to a Mexican cartel on the other side of the border.
After an investigation by the DEA (Drug Control Administration), Mayor Eddie Espinoza, Police Chief Angelo Vega and Blas Gutiérrez stood for the justice of their country.
Together with six other people who were part of his arms smuggling network, they faced 84 charges of arms trafficking. It was determined that at least 12 weapons from this criminal cell have ended up in Mexico.
Espinoza only served one year in prison despite being sentenced to four years for charges against him. He was released in 2013 and remained on probation for the next three years.
Do business around
Data obtained by MILLENNIUM show that between 2006 and 2019, nearly 223 thousand weapons were insured in Mexico, 59 percent of them long, that is, rifles, carbines, rifles and shotguns. 41% were short, that is, pistols and revolvers.
The attacks mainly took place in Tamaulipas, Michoacán, Sinaloa, Guerrero and Chihuahua. The seizures also included 4,000 shells and 5.6 million rounds of ammunition in the same period.
According to figures from the Center of American Progress, more than 230,000 weapons from the United States cross the northern border into Mexico every year.
According to some experts consulted, the situation has gotten worse since 2004 in the United States The prohibition on the production, transfer or possession of semi-automatic assault weapons for civilian use has lapsed.
This has given the cartels in Mexico access to enormous firepower, which affects both this country and the United States. Some examples are the Browning M2 machine guns, which are capable of firing 550 rounds per minute. that paraded in the call culiacanazo owned by the Sinaloa Cartel in October 2019.
Or the .50-caliber Barrett rifles, a powerful military weapon capable of firing more than a kilometer under optimal conditions, which the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel used in the attack on Mexico City’s Secretary of Security, Omar García Harfuch last June.
JLMR