Mexico demands investigation into US military-grade weapons being used by drug cartels

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico wants an urgent investigation into how United States 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 US 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 US 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 armoured vehicles and bomb-dropping drones.

In June, Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said five rocket launchers had been found in the possession of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, four were seized from the rival Sinaloa cartel and three more seized from other cartels.

Sandoval did not specifically say the weapons were from US military stockpiles.

Ken Salazar, the US ambassador to Mexico, confirmed Monday that Mexican officials had brought up the issue at meetings last week, and while he had not been aware of the problem, he pledged the United States would look into it.

“We are going to look into it, we are committed to working with Sedena (Mexico's Defense Department) to see what's going on,” Salazar said.

There are a number of possible routes by which the weapons may have made their way to Mexico.

Central America was awash with US weaponry during the conflicts of the 1980s, military-grade weapons sometimes go missing from stocks in the United States, and some manufacturers who sell arms to the US military might also have sold some abroad or on the black market.

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