AZMEX EXTRA 1 OCT 2012
Note: some interesting but questionable stats included. As usual
left out of the stats are the thousands of US and European firearms
sent to the Mexican government, and then to cartels.
Increase in confiscated guns
The number of high-powered rifles seized increased from 2007 to 2011.
Five years ago the handguns accounted for the bulk of the seized, but
last year rifles accounted for 65% , according to official figures
SEIZURES. Minimum sentences for trafficking weapons, only 61
prisoners in four years. (Photo: UNIVERSAL ARCHIVE)
Related News
Sedena: 3 guns were used in U.S. slaughter 10/01/2012
01/10/2012 Gun Free School
Related Sites
Notification Document provenance in criminal use of weapons
Univision Video Investigation Reveals Additional Weapons Found In
Fast And Furious Scandal
Get weapons tracking program to Salvarcar slaughter
Monday October 1, 2012
Esteban Román | El Universal
esteban.roman @ eluniversal.com.mx
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/primera/40446.html
Before President Felipe Calderón began the fight against the drug
cartels in 2006, 41% of 4000 seized weapons, were mostly handguns.
Five years later, the proportion was reversed and in 2011 rifles
accounted for 65% of guns seized . The total amount of arsenal found
in the country increased eightfold during that time, less than 5000
pieces seized were reached to 40,000 last year.
Every year there are at least 10,000 complaints in Mexico for the
crime of possession of a firearm, however, throughout the Calderón
the number prosecuted for arms trafficking is less than ten.
According to the Attorney General's Office (PGR), in a report
submitted to the Mexican Congress on May 14, in the country 61 people
have been sentenced on charges of arms trafficking between 2007 and
2011. At that time 137,595 weapons were secured. That is, on average
there is a person incarcerated for every 2,200 weapons found.
In Mexico there are no gun stores, it is illegal to possess unless
you get a permit to prove that life depends on them or use of
employment. Despite that, it is the seventh country with more guns
in civilian hands in the world: 15 million, one for every three
adults, according to United Nations.
Every day is a tragedy linked with these weapons. Last Wednesday, two
seniors were killed on the way to pick up their grandchildren in a K-
located on the northern outskirts of Mexico City, her 50 years, was
shot in the face, he, 83, of a bullet in the chest. Caught in the
crossfire between police and criminals, local prosecutors said.
From 2007 to 2010 were killed people in 29,242 homicides committed
with a firearm, according to the global count of homicide by the UN,
which cites official figures and NGOs. The "curious" is that the
Mexican government itself, through the PGR, says that during this
period 34,612 died from the "criminal rivalry". Between the two
figures are 5000 deaths of difference. If both numbers are taken as
true would mean that the cartel members also killed in clashes with
blows or weapons injuries, and no people were killed in Mexico with a
firearm for another reason than the war between cartels.
The truth is that 70% of illegal guns in Mexico come from the United
States, a fact publicly acknowledged by the Bureau of Alcohol, Snuff,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The number could be higher, says Jose Wall, ATF agent in Tijuana
during Operation Fast and Furious, a Phoenix-assigned today in an
interview broadcast yesterday on Univision, the figure refers to
those that have been able to trace, but counting and modified weapons
that were deleted tuition, "it may be that the figure is up to 95%."
This traffic represents only 10% of the global business of illicit
arms sales, according to the UN. In 2008, 20,000 U.S. weapons arrived
in Mexico. That would mean that crossed the border about five
licensed firearms. "Although it's actually more likely that sales
have been concentrated in a few dealers accomplices".
Sedena: 3 guns from US were used in slaughter
Came from a program ATF trace says
EVENT. In 2010, gunmen stormed a youth party in Villas Salvarcar,
Chihuahua. (Photo: UNIVERSAL ARCHIVE)
Monday October 1, 2012
Editorial | El Universal
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/200453.html
politica@eluniversal.com.mx
On Saturday night, January 30, 2010 students from three different
high schools held a party at a house in Villas de Salvarcar,
Chihuahua. Near midnight gunmen arrived and opened fire on the
attendees, the toll: 15 people killed.
El Diego, leader of the armed wing of the Juarez cartel, after being
arrested, confessed to ordering the slaughter. What was not known
until now is that at least three of the weapons used in the massacre
were provided by the U.S. government, according to a document from
the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA), released yesterday by the
television Hispanic Univision.
The document, signed on March 9, 2010 (two months after the
slaughter), by the then commander of the Fifth Military Region, in
Chihuahua, Brigadier General Jesus Hernandez Espitia, in which
sergeant Rigoberto Garcia Vega says that "according to information
obtained from the Bureau of Alcohol, Snuff and Firearms U.S. weapons
were used from a tracking program that U.S. agency and were taken
across the border by Rodrigo M. Quevedo, Chihuahua, illegally. "
Besides these three weapons, the U.S. broadcaster identifies at least
50 others who were taken to Mexico by purchasers monitored by the
U.S. Firearms U.S. during Operation Fast and Furious.
These weapons were recovered in Mexico in places where crimes
occurred. Their serial numbers appear as part of the screening
program. Previously, the U.S. government had 122 rifles and pistols
related to offenses such as murder Mario Gonzalez, the brother of the
former attorney general of Chihuahua, Patricia Gonzalez, and the
murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, which broke the scandal
in the U.S. .
Through Operation Fast and Furious ATF let "walk" 1,961 weapons
outside the United States with the goal of reaching the cartel
kingpins who acquire the weapons. However, the agency lost track of
shipments.
"Many guns cross the border into Mexico, but that number, quantity
and type of weapons (Fast and Furious) had a major impact on the war
in that area," said Jose Wall in the television report, an ATF agent
assigned to Tijuana from 2009 to 2011.
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