Government Reports Around 2,000 Illegal Weapons Enter Mexico Every Day Katia Torres and Miguel Bonilla - El Universal
go to original June 18, 2015

With the country awash in drug-related violence, gun sales in Mexico have mushroomed, with a ten-fold increase since current President Enrique Peña Nieto took office in 2012. Concerns have been raised on the number of weapons from the United States that have been purchased and how many wind up in the hands of drug cartels and organized crime. Clayton Conn reports from Mexico City. (teleSUR English )

From 2006 to 2014 Mexico's government seized 308,881 weapons, 60% of them between 2009 and 2012.

Reports from the Attorney General's Office (PGR), the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA) and the Navy (Semar) to which El Universal had access also revealed that more 50% of the weapons (155,000) were seized in three states: Mexico City, Tamaulipas and Michoacán, with 93,105, 31, 926 and 31,458 firearms, respectively, followed by Sinaloa (23,386), Guerrero (12,235) and Chihuahua (11,826).

This means an average of 94 weapons were seized every day, enough to equip a military force larger than Mexico's Navy, that has about 60,000 members, or the Federal Police, with 45,000 agents, or even the armed forces of countries like Syria, whose army totals 304,000 elements and ranks 16th globally by size.

The amount of weapons seized in Mexico also exceeds the number of firearms of the military, reserves and paramilitary forces of all Central American countries, which together account for 257,500 troops.

Read the rest at El Universal

Photo: AFP/Getty

Related: Mexico Buys Nearly $1.5 Billion in Equipment from U.S. Military (Breitbart)

Related: Mexican Border City Takes Down Anti-Gun Billboard (Associated Press)

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