Nearly 80% of weapons seized by Mexico’s current administration come from the US

Defense Secretary Ricardo Trevilla announced Tuesday that 18,000 long and short firearms have been seized during President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration, approximately 78% of which originated in the United States. During the morning press conference, he stated that in the time since Sheinbaum took office on October 1, 2024, authorities have confiscated 215 .50 caliber Barrett rifles. According to various security experts, this rifle has become a favorite among drug cartels in Mexico. The data was shared following a report published this past weekend by The New York Times, which revealed that organized crime has used ammunition of this caliber, produced at a U.S. military facility and smuggled across the border, in attacks against Mexican civilians and police officers.

Sheinbaum had addressed the issue on Monday, calling for clarification from the White House. “We are reviewing the story [from The New York Times] so we can speak with the U.S. government about this matter and see how it is possible that these weapons, which are for the exclusive use of their military, are entering Mexico.”

Trevilla also announced the seizure of other types of weaponry from organized crime, including 20 40mm grenade launchers, 13 rocket launchers, and 273 machine guns of various calibers. Regarding the .50 caliber ammunition, the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) has records of 137,000 cartridges seized since 2012, 47% of which originated from the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, a large facility located just outside Kansas City, Missouri, and owned by the U.S. government.

“Tra.icked guns continue to feed forced disappearances and other violence in Mexico, despite reported declines in homicides. Large .50 caliber rifles, which have a small U.S. civilian market but are widely used by cartel groups, are easily purchased in Arizona and Texas,” notes an excerpt from a report published Tuesday by the organization Stop US Arms to Mexico.

The Barrett .50 caliber rifle is capable of accurately shooting targets over a kilometer away and penetrating armor. A helicopter belonging to the Michoacán state government was shot down with this type of weapon in 2023 during a counter-narcotics operation. According to Stop US Arms to Mexico, in response to a freedom of information request to the Mexican Ministry of National Defense (Sedena), the Mexican Army reported the seizure of 140 Barrett .50 caliber rifles in 2025, in addition to another 39 rifles of the same caliber.

However, according to the report, this represents only a fraction of the Barrett rifles trafficked across the border in any given year. The Mexican military recovered 10,689 firearms in 2025, less than one in ten of the estimated 135,000 firearms trafficked from the United States to Mexico annually, the document states.

The report also estimates that, if the proportion of trafficked Barrett weapons confiscated by the Mexican army is the same as that of other firearms, then an average of 1,768 Barrett rifles would be trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico each year.

Arizona, the main supplier for the cartels in Mexico

Amid pressure from the Trump administration on Mexico to curb drug trafficking to the U.S., the Sheinbaum government has not backed down in its standoff with the Republican over weapons. The Mexican president has been insistent in her demand to combat the firepower of the cartels to curb the violence plaguing the country, especially the weapons trafficked from states north of the Rio Grande, such as Texas and Arizona.

According to Stop US Arms to Mexico, Arizona has become the main source and corridor for arms trafficking to Mexican criminal groups.

The report notes that in 2024, Mexican authorities confiscated more firearms in Sonora, just across the border from Arizona, than in any other Mexican state. While the share of weapons originating from Texas remained relatively stable between 2015 and 2024, “most crime guns trafficked to Mexico with a short ‘time to crime’ – the time between purchase and confiscation in Mexico, a key indicator of deliberate trafficking – came from Arizona: 62% of U.S.-sourced guns with a time-to-crime of a year or less."

The report indicates that of the 15 U.S. zip codes where the largest number of weapons were purchased and subsequently confiscated in Mexico during a single year between 2023 and 2024, 14 are in Arizona. Since last July, when Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the longtime leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, was arrested in the United States, internal wars between the Chapitos and Mayitos factions have torn the state apart, killing nearly 2,000 people, many of whom had no connection to crime.

The Stop US Arms to Mexico report states that most of the weapons used in this bloody war come from the United States, specifically Arizona. “Sinaloa has become the Mexican state with more murders of police agents than any other – with 46 cops killed in Sinaloa in 2025 (through December 18). The movement of firearms to Sinaloa since mid-2024 is also reflected in data on gun confiscations in 2025: the Mexican army seized 2,095 firearms in the state last year, more than twice as many as any other state,” adds an excerpt from the document.

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