CESOP Reports 2000 Illegal Weapons Cross US-Mexico Border Every Day David Gagne - InSight Crime
go to original January 24, 2015

A new study suggests the number of guns trafficked from the United States to Mexico is higher than previously believed, underscoring the uncertainty that surrounds the cross-border weapons trade, as well as its impact on violence in Mexico.

According to a recent report (pdf) on arms trafficking by Mexico's governmental research service, known as the CESOP, an estimated 2,000 weapons illegally enter Mexico from the United States every day. The report says 85 percent of the approximately 15 million weapons that were in circulation in Mexico in 2012 were illegal.

The report - which is based largely on numerous international studies and reports - highlights the large number of cheap military and assault-style weapons available in the United States, in addition to lax US gun laws, as the main reasons for the high number of arms smuggled into Mexico. Some 40 percent of firearms used by drug traffickers in Mexico come from Texas alone, the report stated.

The report identifies straw purchasing - in which individuals legally buy weapons in the United States, before smuggling them into Mexico and selling them on the black market - as the most common form of arms trafficking.

The report does not, however, mention Mexican security forces, which InSight Crime found in a 2011 study to be a large source of black market weapons.

The CESOP report also does not explain where it sourced its estimate that 2,000 weapons illegally cross the US-Mexico border every day. According to Clay Boggs, a specialist on Mexico and gun trafficking at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), this figure may be a relic from the era of former President Felipe Calderon, who was a vocal critic of the perceived inaction of the US on stemming the flow of guns illegally entering Mexico.

“Two thousand is a number Calderon frequently used, but it was a projection because no one knows how many guns cross the border,” Boggs told InSight Crime.

Read the rest at InSight Crime

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