This week, the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador filed an unprecedented lawsuit against several US arms manufacturers, accusing them of “negligent practices” that facilitate the traffic of their products to Mexico. One such weapon is the fearsome Barrett M82.
The rifle, manufactured by Barrett Firearms, uses .50 caliber bullets that can easily penetrate bulletproof vests, concrete and even war tanks and, according to demand, is one of the weapons of choice that Mexican criminals use to confront security forces local.
In fact, Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, director of programs for Noria Research’s Mexico and Central America Office, said that M82 has disrupted the balance of power between criminal groups and poorly equipped local police.
“If you have a Barrett, it means that non-special forces, like the local police and the municipal police, cannot fight you,” Grandmaison said. “That leaves the military as the only ones capable of fighting the cartels.”
A protagonist in the first Gulf War, the M82 emerged in the 1980s and, thanks to its efficiency and power, it is used by more than 70 security agencies around the world, according to Barrett Firearms herself, who did not respond to requests for comment.
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Between 2009 and 2020, 358 M82s were seized, with 2019 being the year with the most seizures, with 68, according to official figures cited by the newspaper Milenio. But the seizures do not appear to be enough to stop the bloody war against drug cartels that has driven crime to record highs.
Most of the seizures were made in northwestern Mexico, a territory dominated by Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. However, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) have also made use of the rifle, which weighs about 14 kilograms and measures about 1.5 meters.
For Grandmaison, the M82 has also become a status symbol for Mexican criminals who wish to project their power. Drug cartels often post photos of their gunmen with heavy caliber weapons and war gadgets, imitating the style of military forces.
“A WEAPON OF WAR”
In mid-2020, the Barrett M82 was one of the weapons used in the attack against the capital’s Secretary of Security, Omar García, who survived and pointed out to the powerful CJNG that he was behind the failed operation that killed two of his bodyguards and a passerby.
The M82, which can fire 70 rounds per minute with a maximum range of 2,500 meters, is capable of shooting down aircraft, as was demonstrated in September 2016 in Michoacán, in the eastern part of the country, when alleged members of the criminal group “Los Caballeros Templarios ”They shot down a helicopter that was carrying out an anti-narcotics operation.
“It is a weapon of war,” said a Mexican official, who spoke on condition of anonymity and described the possession of the M82 by criminals as “a serious problem” because of its enormous firepower.
The strengthening of the drug cartels in Mexico cannot be understood without the firepower they have, in many cases greater than that of the armed forces.
In fact, in October 2019, after terrorizing the population of Culiacán, in the northwest of the country, with M82 shots, members of the Army had to free the son of the imprisoned drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) is planning to manufacture high-caliber rifles similar to the M82s to counter the power of criminals, according to a 2019 report by the newspaper El Sol de México.
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The United States Congress was notified last week that the Mexican Navy and Naval Infantry are lined up to buy up to $ 5.5 million in automatic rifles manufactured by SIG Sauer, which asked authorities for authorization to finalize the sale, they told Reuters. sources familiar with the case.
However, security analysts consulted by Reuters believe that the main obstacle to such projects is that, due to international treaties, the Mexican armed forces cannot use sophisticated weapons to confront the cartels since the country is not at war.