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.
Cartel probably stole them from a military base or in transit.
Yeah sure, it can’t be bought so that must be it. Steal from a military base is the most reasonable answer.
It’s not an unreasonable answer. There’s quite a few places they could steal/buy/acquire them from. And stealing them from one of the largest Army bases in the US, that’s also in a border state, isn’t beyond reasonable at all.
It’s definitely not unreasonable. It’s also happened before on several occasions. These peope think members of the military are immune from cartel extortion and threats?
I will not be surprised if Ft. Cavazos is involved in some way.