ATLANTA — Federal agents announced the arrest of more than a dozen people on charges of attempting to traffic military style weapons into Mexico.
A total of 14 people were arrested. At least nine, they say, are illegal immigrants operating in the US.
The agents said the cartels used drug money from bringing in meth and fentanyl and used it to buy firearms for use in Mexico.
During a news conference on Friday, the ATF displayed the array of firearms that federal agents say they seized in Georgia before they got into the hands of drug cartels in Mexico.
While some are simple handguns, others, like a 50-caliber machine gun and squad automatic weapons, or SAWS, could be frontline weapons for any military across the world.
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“It’s over a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of firearms that were seized,” ATF Special Agent in Charge Benjamin Gibbons said.
Gibbons told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot that people always think of illegal drugs flowing into America, but may not often think of illegal weapons flowing back into Mexico.
“They need firearms. They need powerful weapons. These, outside of the hand pistols, most of these rifles are readily converted over to fully automatic,” Gibbons said.
Homeland Security Special Agent in Charge Steven Schrank said these weapons were bought legally in the US, they were not fully automatic at the time of purchase.
But he said US citizens then conspired to get them into the hands of the drug cartels, who could modify them to make them even deadlier than they are.
“I think we have all seen the tremendous impact that weapons and violence have played south of our border in Mexico, which are driven by cartels, driven by greed, and are expressed in violence,” Schrank said.
The agents didn’t release any names of those arrested, both illegal immigrants and US citizens, because they said this is still an ongoing investigation.
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