U.S. Guns Behind Cartel Killings in Mexico

Mexican government arms-seizure figures show a dramatic shift in the final destination of smuggled weapons. Once largely centered in border states, the arms market appears to be concentrating in Michoacan, the home state of Mexican President Felipe Calder¿n and a favorite of tourists who flock there for the annual migration of millions of monarch butterflies. In the first 10 months of 2007, more than 1,200 weapons were seized in Michoacan, four times as many as were seized in border states such as Baja California and Chihuahua.

The smugglers are willing to take risks for the promise of huge profits. An AK-47 that sells for $200 to $800 at an Arizona gun show can be sold for four times that much in Mexico, according to Newell, the Phoenix ATF special agent.

Not all of the guns are headed for drug traffickers. It is common for migrants to pick up one or two handguns in the United States to sell when they return to their villages, said Victor Clark, a human rights advocate based in Tijuana. Some of the villagers want guns to protect themselves against thuggish drug dealers who rule parts of rural Mexico, but others have scores to settle.

"There are parts of the state of Oaxaca where they're always fighting about land rights," Clark said. "You go to those villages and everybody's got a gun."

Outside the office of Zatara¿n Cedano, the Tijuana police director, a man always stands guard with an AR-15 rifle. Inside, Zatara¿n Cedano wears a handgun strapped over his shoulder and is surrounded by armed men.

Since taking over one of Mexico's largest police forces 20 months ago, Zatara¿n Cedano has buried 18 officers, including three district chiefs. His second-in-command went down last September, when killers came at him on a city street with machine guns; he had only a pistol.

Zatara¿n Cedano, who equips most of his employees with handguns, has just 150 AR-15 rifles to spread among 3,000 officers. Arms smugglers bring more than that into Mexico in a typical two-hour period.

"We have to find a better filter," he said wearily. "We're losing."