‘What I need the most are AK-47s’: How the United States floods Mexico with weapons

“What I need most are chivitos… and peanuts for the chivitos.”

The call comes through in the afternoon. On one side of the line is a woman identified as Fernanda, who’s dedicated to obtaining weapons for the cartels. She’s just been given a new contact.

Fernanda is looking for AK-47s, which are referred to as chivitos — little goats — and are filled up with “peanuts,” a code for ammunition. But she also wants to know what else is on the menu. The buyer is interested in M-240 machine guns: this make is historically popular among NATO forces and the U.S. military, but also among criminal groups. Fernanda also asks about Glocks and large, high-caliber pistols.

“Look, I can get it for you,” answers the contact in the United States, according to court documents seen by EL PAÍS. “Send me someone. I can show you the inventory that’s on hand at that moment […] the problem would also be that I have to pay freight, so that they bring it to me… Where do you want to receive it? El Paso? Laredo?” the intermediary asks. Both sides feel out whether they can trust the other, whether the deal is serious. Building the relationship takes time, but they ultimately manage to come to an agreement.

In a couple of weeks, Fernanda will send two people to the Texas border. The contact and a trusted driver will wait for them in the parking lot of a convenience store or a fast food restaurant — a public place, but a location where there aren’t too many eyes prying. They’ll confirm that the agreed-upon amount of money has been brought along and will then hand over the merchandise discreetly, a couple of blocks away.

“Follow me, we’ll go to the little warehouse and everything will be there. You just have to be sure to bring the money,” the man explains. “Okay, sounds good,” Fernanda replies. “I hope we can keep doing business together for a long time.” Even though they’ve never met, the deal is closed for a sum of $63,000, in exchange for 20 AK-47s and two Barrett 50-caliber rifles. Fernanda doesn’t know it, but her contact is actually an undercover agent.

After months of tension, Mexico saw the light at the end of the tunnel amidst the tariff war announced by Donald Trump. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reached an agreement to postpone the imposition of tariffs for a month, in exchange for deploying 10,000 soldiers to the border. At the negotiating table with Washington, Sheinbaum also dug in her heels, demanding that Washington take more forceful action against illegal arms trafficking. “For the first time, the U.S. government has said: ‘We’re going to work together to prevent high-powered weapons from entering Mexico,’” she told the public on Monday.

Between 70% and 90% of weapons in Mexico come from the United States, according to the authorities. “It’s a phenomenon of supply and demand,” explains Ieva Jusionyte, a professor at Brown University. “In the United States, there’s huge demand for drugs and a large supply of weapons and, in Mexico, it works the other way around,” says the author of Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence across the Border.

There’s another key factor behind arms trafficking. In Mexico, there’s only one store that distributes weapons, and it’s run by the Mexican Army. In the United States, there are more than 75,000 licensed gun dealers. “On one side [of the border], it’s illegal. And, on the other, legal,” Carlos Pérez Ricart explains. He’s an assistant professor in International Relations at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE), in Mexico City. “In the United States,” he sighs, “it’s easier to buy an AK-47 than for someone under 21-years-old to buy a bottle of alcohol or some cigarettes.”

Thanks to the invisible hand of illicit markets, the so-called “War on Drugs” has become a multi-billion dollar business for arms dealers. The industry produces twice as many weapons as it did 25 years ago and has sold more than 106 million units since 2017, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. regulatory agency. Meanwhile, between 200,000 and 500,000 weapons cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally every year, according to official estimates.

In 2021, the Mexican government announced an unprecedented lawsuit against the giants of the weapons industry — the first link in the trafficking chain. The authorities claimed negligent business practices and demanded nearly $10 billion in compensation. The litigation is currently stalled in a Boston court and its future is in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court, which — later this year — will rule on whether Mexico can overcome the legal shield that protects large arms manufacturers. Another lawsuit in Arizona — filed against distributors in 2022 — is advancing on a separate track. Glock, Beretta, Smith & Wesson and Colt are among the most common brands that are seized in raids south of the border. They also top the list of the firms being sued.

“I’m waiting for him here, they just gave me his number.” The undercover agent is impatient. Fernanda sent two men to El Paso to make the deal, but they’re four hours late. When one of them calls to tell him that they’re close, the authorities begin to move. “Ok guys, get ready,” he warns. Minutes later, the transaction — and the arrests — are made.

“Once I handed over the money, the other guy was going to pick up the weapons and take them to Mexico,” admits one of the detainees, in the middle of an intense interrogation. The agents pressure him to betray his partners, but the man fears that his family will be killed in retaliation. He demands guarantees before speaking. “If you bring my wife and my son here, I’ll tell you where they’re going, who they are and how [the weapons] are taken [across the border],” he promises. In the end, however, no agreement is reached and the conversation becomes evidence in a trial. In September 2024, the accused was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Two other accomplices pleaded guilty. Fernanda remains at large.

“Arms trafficking usually has many more people involved than drug trafficking,” Jusionyte notes. The most common form of trafficking begins with a legal sale via proxies. “The people who buy are usually U.S. citizens: a friend or acquaintance who buys a gun for someone else in exchange for a commission,” the professor explains.

They’re often ordinary people, with no criminal record. They don’t raise suspicions. “Then, these people pass the weapons on to other intermediaries: transporters, messengers, or those who have direct contact with the cartels and take more risks,” she adds. “The original buyers almost never have any idea where these weapons go.”

Other common sources are gun shows, where weapons are openly promoted and sold, without major restrictions for buyers. Around 5,000 events of this type are organized each year in the United States — or 100 each weekend — according to the National Rifle Association (NRA)

Sometimes, cartels turn to social media or online forums, where private customers resell their products, sell the guns in pieces (unassembled), or offer so-called “ghost guns.” These homemade or 3D-printed rifles are made without regulations: there are no serial numbers to be traced. There are also stolen weapons, as well as alleged cases of corruption in law enforcement, although these represent less than 10% of cases.

Sometimes, it’s not even necessary to resort to illegal schemes. You can go directly to the manufacturers’ websites, where some companies have deployed advertising campaigns with a warlike background and Mexican motifs. This is a central part of the Mexican government’s lawsuit. “It’s a chain of negligence, where each link decides to look the other way,” Alejandro Celorio laments. He led the litigation team until October of 2024.

Each member of the chain makes different profits. An Ohio-based trafficker — who was convicted last year — was selling an AR-15 rifle or an M-4 carbine for $3,000 and an AK-47 for $4,500. A Texas seller was offering ghost guns for $2,000 each. In contrast, a smuggler caught last week earned only $100 for each rifle he smuggled into Mexico.

Wherever there are weapons, there are almost always drugs. Fernanda’s cell took advantage of the trips: they brought methamphetamines from Mexico into the U.S. and then reinvested the profits, purchasing American-made arsenals. “Weapons are what allow organizations in Mexico to diversify their criminal portfolio and not just focus on drug trafficking,” Pérez Ricart points out. They’re also a powerful factor in explaining why many Mexicans decide to migrate. “Without weapons, there’s no kidnapping or extortion,” he adds. “Without weapons, there’s no organized crime.”

Weapons also lead to more and larger-caliber weapons. “The main concern of the Mexican government is the upward spiral of violence,” Celorio tells EL PAÍS. “If a criminal has a weapon, his rival will want to have a more powerful one and the authorities will also have to increase their firepower. It’s an arms race, the fuel for the machinery of all trafficking,” the former official affirms.

Sixty percent of the weapons trafficked into Mexico come from 10 U.S. counties. Most are in Texas and Arizona — close to the border, where regulations are more lax. Others are near the California border — a hub for interstate trafficking — or in regions of the northeastern United States where some manufacturers have their headquarters, Celorio notes.

The main trafficking routes are clearly delineated in the latest ATF report. There’s a highly-visible correlation: the Mexican states most affected by violence are also those that recover the most weapons trafficked from the United States. Most of these weapons were originally sold in U.S. jurisdictions that have lax laws when it comes to the sale of weapons.

The most important corridors are from Arizona to the Mexican state of Sonora and from Texas to Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Chihuahua and Guanajuato. Baja California, Michoacán, Sinaloa and Zacatecas also appear among the top 10 most-affected states. Each of these states has a significant presence of the Sinaloa Cartel or the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Eight out of 10 weapons seized in Mexico were in states where these cartels are present, according to the ATF. And virtually all U.S. states appear as points of origin, from Alaska to Hawaii.

The impact is also evident. Seven out of 10 victims of homicide in Mexico were killed last year with firearms: almost 22,000 people, according to official data. “The biggest predictor of violence in the country is whether you were shot, even if you don’t die,” Pérez Ricart clarifies. “That individual is very likely the same one who will either shoot a firearm, or be shot again.”

Beyond the lawsuits that are making their way through the courts, arms trafficking is a recurring argument between Mexico to the United States. And the tariff crisis hasn’t been an exception. Even though Sheinbaum said that Trump was receptive to controlling arms trafficking, the issue was left out of the official White House communications regarding the pausing of tariffs. Washington focused, instead, on the migration crisis and fentanyl flows. There’s enormous skepticism about the U.S. president’s real willingness to collaborate against armed violence.

“I find it hard to imagine Trump doing anything against guns,” Jusionyte shrugs. Celorio is optimistic about what’s been achieved in recent years, such as the law promoted by Joe Biden in 2022 to limit access to high-caliber weapons and recognize arms trafficking as a federal crime for the first time. However, the attorney admits that the prevailing view considers that taking action is “politically costly,” given the enormous power of the U.S. weapons industry and the constitutional right to bear arms.

“They are actors who have financed several campaigns and who are very much at the center of the MAGA movement,” Pérez Ricart emphasizes. “The United States prefers to make Mexico into a scapegoat rather than question what it has done wrong.”

Specialists agree that it’s a laudable diplomatic strategy, although they say that much remains to be done, because the majority of the U.S. public is unaware that the war south of the border is fought with their weapons. “Mexico doesn’t have many cards to play. Our country is sitting at the negotiating table with someone who doesn’t respect the agreements,” Pérez Ricart laments. “Yet the impact of trafficking is a devastating and unquestionable argument.”

Translated by Avik Jain Chatlani.

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