Gun smuggling to Mexico dented, but hardly slowed, by border searches

Stepped-up searches of outbound vehicles at the Mexican border turn up guns, but the flow continues as drug cartels shift tactics.

By Cindy Carcamo, LA Times
5:21 PM PDT, July 12, 2013

NOGALES, Ariz. — Gun runners once were so nonchalant about driving into Mexico that one smuggler stashed a .50-caliber rifle on the top of the engine block of a sedan, the weapon visible to anyone who bothered to pop the hood.

It was 2010 and word hadn't yet spread that U.S. officials were beefing up outbound inspections, searching for guns that were fueling Mexico's raging drug war. Border agents confiscated the rifle and hundreds of other weapons and ammunition during the first few years of stepped-up enforcement along the southwestern border, federal data show.

Mexican officials have also taken action, installing scales to see whether southbound cars are abnormally overweight — a possible indication of gun smuggling.

But as inspections have become more aggressive, smugglers have become more sophisticated.

(More here.)