Mexican cartels boast increased firepower, including U.S. weapons

Lina Portman5 days ago

0 6 minutes read

Steve Fisher
| For USA TODAY

The man sat in a worn office chair in the back room of a market in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, amid vegetable trimmings and a random pile of milk crates. He wore a blue shirt, worn jeans – and a ski mask.

He asked to be referred to by a nickname, “El Flaco” — the skinny guy — so authorities couldn’t identify him. He works as a mercenary, he said, and had come to discuss a closely guarded secret of Mexico’s most powerful cartels: the FGM 148 Javelin infrared-guided missile launcher.

El Flaco says he was trained to perform special operations with handguns, including the Javelin. He said he now trains others to use it as well.

David Saucedo, a security consultant, confirmed that the Javelin was used by cartels and suggested that cartels could reveal the information as a show of force to Mexico's new president, who is due to take power later this year.

“It's about showing the government, maybe this one or the one that's coming, that they have the capacity to launch attacks like this with the weapons they have,” Saucedo said. “It’s their secret weapon, but they can use it if necessary. That's my impression. »

Reveal: Which US arms dealers are behind Mexican cartel violence

If El Flaco is telling the truth, the Javelins would be among the most extreme examples of the escalating arms race between the cartels and the Mexican military. The cartels’ arsenals now include belt-fed Gatling guns, drone bombs and land mines, all of which could provoke the U.S. elected officials who have advocated invading Mexico.

The American-made Javelin is the world's most sophisticated shoulder-fired missile, with a range of a mile and a half. Its primary purpose is to destroy military tanks, but it also has the ability to shoot down low-flying helicopters, according to the owner's manual.

U.S. officials have flatly denied that the cartels own Javelins, as has a senior Mexican security official, but despite scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Defense, there are flaws in the U.S. tracking system. During the 2003 Iraq War, for example, the department lost track of 35 Javelins supplied to Iraqi allied forces. ISIS was found to have a javelin in Syria, Kurdish fighters there also obtained a javelin, and the weapon was found in the base of a Libyan warlord.

Back in Mexico, an official with the Federal Secretariat of Security, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, said authorities had confiscated two Javelins from a faction of the New Generation Jalisco cartel.

A similar weapon may have already been used in secret against high-ranking Mexican government officials.

Helicopter crash may not be what it seemed

Aguascalientes state police chief Porfirio Sánchez Mendoza was flying over the capital in his government helicopter in 2022 when the aircraft suddenly lost control.

An online video shows the helicopter plunging into a vacant lot and exploding in a ball of flames. Four people were on board with the secretary. All are dead.

This accident is part of a series of similar accidents that have occurred in Mexico in recent years. Like many others, it was attributed to mechanical failures.

But the internal forensic report tells a different story, according to Saucedo, who reviewed the internal documents. Saucedo – who has conducted security consultations with Mexican political candidates, including for governor and senator – said the report details how an explosive projectile pierced the helicopter's door, he said. declared, and debris scattered in a circle, which does not correspond to a mechanical failure.

Forensic investigations determined that it was a Javelin-like munition, he said, adding that “part of the helicopter broke off on impact.”

Saucedo spoke to the forensic scientist in charge of the case, who conducted an analysis of the shrapnel, and said there was only one type of projectile that matched the results.

“He said the only missile with these types of characteristics was the Javelin,” Saucedo said.

El Flaco, the mercenary, also said that the helicopter was shot down by a Javelin and that he knew the attacker who fired the shot.

“I coached him,” he said.

The head of the Security Secretariat confirmed that the helicopter was shot down by an explosive projectile, but could not confirm the brand of the weapon.

The cartel arms race has intensified in recent years

El Flaco said the cartels began buying guided missile launchers in part because rival criminal gangs were building tank-like attack vehicles whose armor can no longer be penetrated even by the high-powered .50-caliber Barret rifle. He added that threats by some U.S. politicians, including Donald Trump, to bomb Mexican cartels also played a role.

It was also becoming clear to cartel leaders, he added, that the Mexican army was ready to intensify its attacks in the cartel stronghold city of Culiacán, including when it arrested Ovidio Guzmán, son of El Chapo Guzman. To conduct these large-scale raids, the Army has begun using belt-fed mini Gatling guns — which can fire more than 4,000 rounds per minute — more frequently from helicopter gunships.

In response, cartel leaders began seeking even more powerful weapons to counter the attacks.

“If the army gets a new, big weapon,” El Flaco said at the Sinaloa market. “The cartel will always want something even bigger.”

The Sinaloa Cartel has sought to purchase surface-to-air missiles and rocket launchers in the past, including in 2009, when three cartel members negotiated prices with people who turned out to be undercover Drug Enforcement agents. US Administration (DEA).

Seven years later, Mexican authorities seized a FIM-92 Stinger heat-seeking missile, capable of downing a passenger plane. They also attempted to purchase a Dragon Fire anti-tank missile launcher, the predecessor to the Javelin, and two AT4 lightweight shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket launchers. Federal agents arrested all three.

In a press release at the time, Thomas Brandon of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it was clear that “criminal organizations and drug cartels based in Mexico continue to look to the United States as a source of firearms supply. and in this case, military-grade weapons such as grenades, machine guns, and man-portable air defense systems.

Six years later, Mexican authorities seized an FIM 43 Redeye infrared-guided missile launcher – capable of downing a fighter jet – from a cartel member in the northern state of Chihuahua . Since 2018, the Mexican government has said it has seized a dozen rocket launchers and 56 grenade launchers from cartels.

Criminal groups are not only increasing their firepower to fight the military, but also targeting communities in southern states like Michoacán and Guerrero to expand their territory by seizing land from farmers and rival cartels .

Fernando Jose Ventura, a former member of the Jalisco Cartel who fled the criminal organization earlier this year, described to local media — and to USA TODAY — how he saw 200 drone bombs dropped on a community over a 24-hour period.

“They bombed non-stop for a whole day,” Ventura said.

The Mexican military has deactivated more than 2,800 landmines since 2018, according to public records, more than half of them in the last two years. Earlier this year, authorities in the western state of Michoacán also seized 117 homemade bomb drones from a factory owned by the Jalisco cartel.

The M134 minigun has also started showing up at crime scenes across the country – a six-barreled weapon that can destroy a small car in minutes. Leaked Mexican military documents shared with media by transparency organisation DDO Secrets show that the defence ministry seized its first minigun in 2018.

ATF Director Steven Dettelbach confirmed at a forum in June that cartels now have miniguns.

“Weapons like this present extreme danger when they fall into the hands of criminals,” Dettelbach said. “They are looking for a level of weaponry that exceeds that of Mexican law enforcement.”

Threats from US officials are known to crime bosses

The increase in cartel firepower comes as some U.S. lawmakers have sought to declare Mexican cartels terrorist organizations and repeatedly suggested the U.S. should send the military to kill cartel leaders on their own land.

Republican Reps. Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Mike Waltz of Florida introduced legislation to that effect in Congress in 2022. And, in 2020, President Donald Trump floated the idea of bombing cartel-run fentanyl labs, according to a book by Mark Esper, its president. Secretary of Defense at the time.

Notice: Should the United States send troops to fight Mexican drug cartels? Not a good idea.

Most recently, Trump said that if re-elected, he would send special forces to kill drug lords in Mexico.

Speaking through his ski mask at the back of the Sinaloa market, El Flaco was barely audible above the din of merchants outside and cars passing by. But he made one thing clear: The cartel is well aware of these threats and will not hesitate to retaliate.

This includes using a Javelin, if necessary. His bosses, he said, “would not hesitate to use it against (US forces), if they dared to enter the country.”

“It would create a terrible war,” El Flaco said. “We will not allow Mexican forces to stop us, much less a foreign force. »

Helicopter crash may not be what it seemed

The cartel arms race has intensified in recent years

Threats from US officials are known to crime bosses

Lina Portman

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