Mexico keeps a tight hold on captured guns and ammo
Deep inside a heavily guarded military warehouse, the evidence of Mexico’s war on drug cartels is stacked two stories high: tens of thousands of seized weapons, from handguns to AK-47s, some with gun sights carved into the shape of a rooster or a horse’s head.
The vault nestled in a Mexican military base is the government’s largest stash of weapons — 88,537 of them — seized from brutal drug gangs. The Associated Press was recently given rare and exclusive access to the secure facility.
The sheer size of the cache attests to the seemingly hopeless task of ever sorting and tracing the guns, possibly to trafficking rings that deliver weapons to Mexico. And security designed to keep the guns from getting back on the streets is so tight that even investigators have trouble getting the access they need.
The guns are stacked to the two-story ceiling in a warehouse the size of a small Wal-Mart. The rifles lie on 22 metal racks; the pistols hang from metal poles by their triggers.
The security, bolstered by closed-circuit cameras and motion detectors, makes the warehouse practically impenetrable, said Gen. Antonio Erasto Monsivais, who oversees the armory.
The military has 305,424 confiscated weapons locked in vaults, just a fraction of those used by criminals in Mexico, where an offensive by drug cartels against the military has killed more than 10,750 people since December 2006. But each weapon is a clue to how the cartels are getting arms, and possibly to the traffickers who brought them here.
The U.S. has acknowledged that many of the rifles, handguns and ammunition used by the cartels come from its side of the border. Mexican gun laws are strict, especially compared with those in most U.S. border states.
The Mexican government has handed over information to U.S. authorities to trace 12,073 weapons seized in 2008 crimes — particularly on guns from large seizures or notorious crimes.
But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which handles the U.S. investigations, is at the mercy of local Mexican police for the amount and quality of the information.
“Many of these rural municipalities that may come into a gun seizure … may not even know anything about tracing guns,” ATF spokesman Thomas Mangan said.
A police officer in Mexico submits a description, a serial number and distinctive markings of the gun. The weapons are then turned over to the military for storage in one of a dozen armories such as the one in Mexico City.
When U.S. investigators need additional details, as they often do, the request goes back to the original police officer, who must retrieve the gun from a military vault — sometimes hundreds of miles away.
Mexican police must ask permission each time they need to look at a stored gun, Monsivais said. Even if that permission is granted, the investigator cannot go past the metal fencing separating a reception desk and the shelves holding the guns. A soldier has to bring out the requested weapons.
The security, language differences and bureaucracy add up to a painstaking process, said J. Dewey Webb, special agent in charge of the ATF’s Houston Field Division.
“The military does a very good job, when the weapons come into their custody, of securing them,” he told the AP. “Because of the systems in Mexico, it’s very difficult for us to get in.”
Webb said recent talks between the two countries were beginning to ease access, but he noted other problems.
Many mistakes are made because of difficulty translating technical terms about firearms, Webb said. A Spanish-language version of eTrace, the Web-based method of submitting tracing information, won’t be available until next year.
About a third of the guns submitted for tracing in 2007 were sold by licensed U.S. dealers.
U.S. agents need the information to track the gun back to the manufacturer and determine when it was made and what wholesaler it was shipped to, ATF spokeswoman Franceska Perot said. Agents follow the gun to the local licensed dealer who sold it and determine the buyer.
ATF offices around the U.S. are swamped with tracing requests, trying to determine who actually bought the weapons and whether they were part of a firearms trafficking scheme. The ATF has sent an extra 100 agents to Houston to help unclog the 700-weapon backlog as part of its Project Gunrunner.
The seized weapons are kept in the vaults as long as they are needed as evidence, Monsivais said. Most have been there for years, an indication of how slowly criminal investigations proceed and how few crimes are solved.
When the criminal investigations are complete, most of the weapons are destroyed and melted down. Some of the more powerful arms, such as machine guns and sniper rifles, are added to the military’s own arsenal. Showpieces are destined for museums.
