Recruitment through social media and $14,000 payments: How a network sends trafficked weapons from Arizona to Mexico

In December 2022, at a gun show in Phoenix, Arizona, Ana Camarillo tried to buy a Barrett M82, a .50 caliber semi-automatic sniper rifle. It’s a weapon designed to destroy light armor, structures, communications equipment, and aircraft on the ground. It’s known for its power and effective range of 1.5 to 2.5 kilometers. Its price ranges from $8,000 to $14,000. Camarillo couldn’t lift the weapon herself, but the seller sold it to her anyway. She paid in cash. That same day, at the same venue, another group of people also bought seven .50 caliber rifles, five assault rifles, and two pistols. Three years later, one of them was recovered in Sinaloa on March 24, 2025.

As a result of an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Camarillo and eight other U.S. citizens have been linked to the discovery of this lethal equipment and charged as coordinators of a network that purchased and trafficked weapons from Arizona to Mexico between 2022 and 2024. Documents obtained by EL PAÍS highlight the surge in the trafficking of artillery that allegedly benefits criminal groups south of the Rio Grande.

However, Carrillo was just a pawn in this network of “phantom buyers,” the term for those who lend their names, in exchange for payment, for the legal acquisition of weapons for a third party. According to the statement by ATF agent Jesús Álvarez, the people pulling the strings were the brothers Jorge and Alejandro Corona, who are accused of acquiring eight .50 caliber rifles, four M240-SLR semi-automatic machine guns, one semi-automatic rifle, and two 9mm pistols. The .50 caliber weaponry has become one of the most powerful and coveted long guns among organized crime groups in Mexico, often described as their “favorite weapon” or a “weapon of war” due to its immense destructive power, the ATF report explains.

According to the indictment, the Corona brothers used social media platforms like Snapchat and Facebook to recruit people through fake or cloned profiles, offering between $800 and $1,000 to purchase the firearms they specified. The recruits would go to an address where the pair would hand over the cash and a description of the weapon the recruits were to buy. To complete the purchase, they provided false information on a mandatory ATF form, which must be signed when buying firearms at a federal retailer in the U.S. The buyer must complete this document in person to verify their eligibility through a background check. Under U.S. law, making any false statement on this application is a federal crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $250,000.

Álvarez’s statement does not specify the payment criteria for the Corona brothers’ “phantom buyers.” However, the document details that the other seven members of this group were paid sums ranging from $1,500 to $14,000 for completing the purchase and delivery of weapons of various types and calibers.

“The United States does nothing”

Álvarez stated that the Corona brothers always had large amounts of cash on hand. One of the women who worked for them, April Corral, even said she remembered that on one occasion when he picked her up to go buy weapons, there was money scattered all over the truck and a plastic bag containing approximately $50,000 in cash.

Alejandro Corona explained that he sometimes deposited cash into his bank account in one Arizona city and then withdrew it in another, but that he never exceeded $9,000 to evade bank reporting requirements. He stated that he did this to avoid questions at U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints. He also said that he taped money to his body when passing through checkpoints. According to the same statement, once the weapons were purchased, he transferred them to two accomplices: Salvador García Moreno and another individual identified as Noe N. Corona stated that they both smuggled large amounts of money into the United States to facilitate the purchase of firearms and also transported them to Mexico.

Pablo Pérez Ricart, a professor and researcher at the International Studies Division of the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), one of Mexico’s most prestigious universities, refers to these individuals, also known as “prestanombres” or name lenders, as a sprawling network involving at least 50,000 people across the United States. He believes that the efforts undertaken by agencies like the ATF and Customs, along with the Mexican government, are like looking for a needle in a haystack. He asserts that the prosecution of these nine defendants is truly “very little” compared to the scale of the problem. “The United States is doing practically nothing. It’s meaningless, since it’s part of small efforts by agencies with very limited budgets that occasionally make arrests of this kind. Our most consistent figures indicate that we’re talking about 145,000 weapons entering Mexico each year. That’s about 400 a day,” adds the author of the book La violencia vino del Norte (Violence Came from the North.)

Within this framework, another key player in understanding the problem of arms trafficking is the gun shop. The document lists at least seven businesses, with federal permits to sell firearms, as locations where this group makes multiple purchases and where, for various reasons and on different occasions, they were unable to complete the transactions. Despite this, the report does not mention that they were ever denied a purchase.

Civilians with “inappropriate” artillery

Operations by the Industrial Operations Investigators (IOI) division of the ATF at gun shows, events that bring together manufacturers, collectors and enthusiasts to exhibit and market weapons —for civilian and military use—, tactical equipment or hunting and fishing items, made it possible to verify the acquisition of “inappropriate” artillery by people who paid with large amounts of cash.

Álvarez states that the IOI visually confirmed reports that in December 2022, during one of these gun shows, a business was selling high-end belt-fed rifles, AK-47 variants, all chambered in .38 caliber, a popular cartridge for self-defense and police use, and known for its “good stopping power.” “All of these firearms are favored by members of Mexican cartels and are largely diverted from the traditional gun trade and trafficked to Mexico,” the ATF agent explained.

Amid Donald Trump’s pressure to curb drug trafficking to the U.S., Claudia Sheinbaum’s government continues its demand to combat the firepower of the cartels to curb the violence plaguing the country, especially in states like Sinaloa. “How is it possible that Mexico has seized grenade launchers from criminal groups when these weapons are for the exclusive use of the U.S. military?” she asked during her morning press conference on February 4.

In another 113-count indictment filed by Arizona state authorities in October 2025, investigators documented 334 firearms purchased between 2024 and 2025 by 20 individuals from 23 dealers in the Phoenix area for the purpose of trafficking them to Mexico. At least 14 of the dealers were licensed to manufacture and sell firearms. The majority of the trafficked weapons, 184 rifles, were manufactured by a gun shop based in Florida.

“The data and the accusations in court show us that Arizona has become the main corridor for arms trafficking from the United States to Mexico. Arizona has a very open, highly militarized, massive market, so it’s very easy for an individual or a group of traffickers to buy high-powered weapons. Many of those weapons go to Sinaloa, to fuel the conflict between the groups vying for control of that criminal organization. The route from Texas to Sinaloa wouldn’t be as feasible because it would have to pass through other territories controlled by other groups,” says John Lindsay Poland, coordinator of Stop US Arms to Mexico, an initiative that studies the illegal trafficking of weapons from the U.S. to Mexico.

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