"Iron river of guns" flows from U.S. to Mexico

By Tim Gaynor

PHOENIX (Reuters) - When machinegun-toting hit men fought a bloody battle with police and troops around the Mexico town of Cananea that left 23 dead in May, it at first seemed to be the latest chapter in a very Mexican drug war.

But as U.S. and Mexican detectives subsequently traced powerful assault weapons recovered from the battlefield to Texas and Arizona, it raised the curtain on a deadly and controversial flow of arms from the United States.

A war without quarter for control of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin trafficking routes has killed 1,300 people this year in Mexico, and has created a huge demand among rival drug gangs for weapons of all kinds, authorities say.

Gun sales are illegal in Mexico, and many of the firearms used in Mexican crime are simply bought over-the-counter in the United States, where everything from pistols to high-powered assault rifles can be obtained legally, detectives say.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) estimates that gunrunners haul thousands of weapons a week over the border to Mexico, and they say demand is voracious.

"Just as you see the flow of drugs that comes north, there is an iron river of guns that flows south into Mexico to supply criminal organizations on the border," said Tom Mangan, senior special agent with ATF in Phoenix.

"They are in the market for machine guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles ... It's like they are outfitting an army," he added.

PISTOLS AND MACHINEGUNS

The ATF says the gangs favor high-powered AR-15 and Kalashnikov assault rifles, semi-automatic versions of which can be bought at gun shops and gun shows. Also in demand are the drug lords' favorite: heavily decorated Colt .38 Super pistols.

The guns were made popular by the late Juarez cartel capo Amado Carrillo Fuentes in the 1990s, whose monogrammed Colt encrusted with emeralds is exhibited in a drug trafficking museum in Mexico.

"It's like a general who has a commemorative sidearm, these guns are status symbols for the drug lords," said Mangan.

Investigators say the illicit trade is border-wide and the cartels are resourceful.

To ensure a steady supply of weapons to drug killers in the badlands of northeast Mexico in the 1990s, notorious Gulf cartel founder Juan Garcia Abrego bought seven gun shops in Brownsville, Texas, and used them to run guns south.

Nowadays police say criminal fixers known as "gatekeepers" who live in Mexican border towns rely on networks of buyers who shop to order in the United States.

Many traffickers buy weapons from private sellers at gun shows where transactions often leave no paper trail. Others pay intermediaries $50 to $100 a time to make multiple "straw purchases" on their behalf at gun shops.