Damming the "iron river": Mexico's legal battle to stop gun trafficking from the U.S.
There's been a lot of talk about stopping the flow of illegal immigration and drugs from Mexico. But few people are talking about another crisis at the border…guns. Specifically, American guns.
An estimated 200,000 to half million U.S. firearms are smuggled into Mexico every year —part of what's known as the "iron river."
Mexico says those American guns are responsible for much of the cartel violence that's plagued its country…. and now… it's taking an unusual approach to try and stop it…. it's suing.
The government of Mexico has filed lawsuits in U.S. courts against a handful of gun stores and one of the largest gun manufacturers in America.
It believes damming that "iron river" might also fix some of the problems that plague the U.S.
Jonathan Lowy: If you think fentanyl overdoses are a problem, if you think migration across the border is a problem, if you think the spread of organized crime is a problem in the United States, then you should care about stopping the crime gun pipeline to Mexico. And you need to stop it at its source. Because all those problems are driven by the supply of U.S. guns to the cartels.
Jonathan Lowy is an American attorney who's been battling the gun industry in court for 25 years.
Mexico asked Lowy to help devise its strategy to cut off the gun pipeline after one of the deadliest chapters in the country's history…that culminated with this….
2019, Mexican armed forces captured one of the most wanted drug lords in the world...Ovidio Guzmán López, the son of the former Sinaloa cartel boss-known as El Chapo.
In their custody was the man, U.S. prosecutors say was largely responsible for the massive influx of fentanyl in the United States.
But what should have been a turning point in the war on drugs…turned into a deadly, five-hour gun battle with 600 cartel gunmen. That is a 50-caliber belt-fed rifle...sourced from America. The cartel doused soldiers with gunfire, took hostages, and blocked entrances to the city - burning vehicles.
Outgunned, and hoping to end the bloodshed, Mexico's president at the time….Andrés Manuel López Obrador… ordered Guzmán to be released.
This past March, we spoke to then-President López Obrador in Mexico City. Homicides and cartel violence soared during his six-year term. We were surprised who he said was, partly, to blame.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Where is the cartel getting their guns?
President López Obrador: From the United States. We have confiscated in the time that I've been in government 50,000 guns of high power of high caliber. 50,000 guns. And 75% of them, from the United States.
Which is why he said…his government was pursuing two civil lawsuits in S.S. courts seeking $10 billion for the damages U.S. guns have caused in Mexico.
The first, filed in 2021, included U.S. gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson and one of their wholesalers.
The other filed a year later...against five U.S. gun stores for what mexico claims are - quote "reckless and unlawful business practices" (that) supply dangerous criminals ..."
Sharyn Alfonsi: Is it the U.S.'s responsibility to stop guns from getting in the hands of the cartel? Or is it the Mexican government's responsibility to keep the guns out?
President López Obrador (In Spanish/English translation): : Of both. Of both governments. But there has to be cooperation. You cannot sell weapons to just anybody.
Like the U.S., Mexico's constitution grants citizens the right to bear arms…. but unlike the U.S., that right comes with a long list of restrictions.
There's only one gun store in Mexico…in the middle of a heavily guarded military base in Mexico City…we were allowed in.
But before customers can enter, they have to show proof they've passed psychological tests, drug screens and extensive background checks.
The store sells about a thousand guns a month. Mostly, shotguns, small caliber rifles, and handguns… what civilians can't buy here are the weapons the cartel favors. Those are not legally sold anywhere in Mexico.
Tim Sloan: Cartels' favorite weapons are weapons of war. Belt Feds, .50 caliber rifles-- guns that you can shoot from a mile away. The more expensive, the more powerful, the sexier they think they are.
Sharyn Alfonsi: It's a trophy?
Tim Sloan: It is a trophy.
Tim Sloan worked for the ATF… the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives…for 22 years. His last assignment was running the ATf's four field offices in Mexico - during some of the bloodiest years on record.
Part of his job was tracing the guns recovered at crime scenes. In 2019, one of those scenes was inside a cartel ranch near Guadalajara.
Tim Sloan: There was um dead bodies everywhere. There was a 14-year-old girl choppin' up bodies. And so there were 55 gallon drums with body parts in 'em. It's something that the human mind can almost not comprehend or--or fathom. And all the weapons in that house came from the United States. All of them. Every person there was murdered by a firearm purchased in the U.S. And so it was-- it made a very lasting impression on me.
Sloan says most of the guns the ATF traced in Mexico were sold directly to traffickers or to so-called "straw purchasers"… someone who buys a firearm on behalf of another person. In this case, Americans buying guns that ultimately, end up in the hands of the cartel.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What did you learn during your time about how the cartel was getting these guns from the United States into Mexico?
Tim Sloan: Well, I mean, it's pretty easy, right? So it's straw purchasers. You know, you're-- you're offerin' a 23-year-old girl in Arizona 4,000, 5,000 dollars just to go into a store and buy a gun for you. She's gonna do that. A lot of people are gonna do that, especially if they have any addiction problems, but no criminal record.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Can you send a 24-year-old to go buy an AK47?
Tim Sloan: Oh, as many as they want. Five, five-hundred. They can buy as many as they want as long as they're not prohibited.
Sharyn Alfonsi: And how do they get them into Mexico?
Tim Sloan: Well, that's the easy part. Just drive across the border.
That porous border…works both ways. Over seven years, the ATF traced 50,000 American guns recovered in Mexico to gun dealers across the United States.
But Mexico's lawsuit names just five dealers… from one state.. Arizona. In Mexico City, attorney Alejandro Celorio spearheaded the lawsuits for the Mexican government.
Alejandro Celorio: We believe they're liable for actively facilitating the trafficking of firearms that empower the cartels, the fentanyl crisis. A cartel without firearm is-- is just a gang.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The five gun shops that you've named in Arizona, how did you choose those five gun shops?
Alejandro Celorio: It's based off who do we believe are the-- the bad actors in this dynamic.
It's difficult to know which gun dealers could be, "bad actors" because U.S. law prohibits the ATF from publicly releasing specific gun trace information.
But 60 Minutes reviewed internal ATF and Mexican law enforcement documents. According to the documents… 566 guns recovered in Mexico over a four-and-a-half-year period…. were traced back to the Arizona gun dealers named in Mexico's lawsuit.
And nearly 200 of the guns came from one dealer, Ammo AZ…near Phoenix. Veerachart 'Danger' Murphy is the store's owner.
Murphy: We sell guns here legally.
Murphy declined to be interviewed by 60 Minutes but after Ammo AZ was named in Mexico's lawsuit…he posted this response online.
Murphy: If we were actually doing something illegal, ATF FBI would have already shut us down. And I would be in jail.
The ATF has said a crime gun trace does not necessarily indicate gun dealer wrongdoing.
Jonathan Lowy: If you're a dealer and you have reason to know that that person is a straw buyer or gun trafficker, it's your legal obligation not to supply them with guns.
Jonathan Lowy, who is Mexico's co-counsel, has litigated gun cases in more than 40 states.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The gun shop owners we spoke to said, "Look, I'm-- running the background checks, I'm filling out the paperwork. I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to do. Isn't that enough?"
Jonathan Lowy: Absolutely not. The dealer's main responsibility, in my view, is to pay attention to indicators to see if the person standing in front of them, on the other side of the counter, is a potential criminal or supplier to the criminal market.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The gun retailers say it's really hard to know sometimes if somebody's a straw buyer, right? That they come in with a good cover story and you have to believe them.
Jonathan Lowy: It's pretty obvious. I mean, you see these multiple sales of-- of AR-15s, you see these large cash payments, you see these persons comin' back to the store every few days or every few weeks. I mean, these are not normal buying patterns.
There are more than 75,000 licensed gun dealers in the United States, twice as many as U.S. post offices. Jonathan Lowy says most of those dealers are acting responsibly.
Jonathan Lowy: About 90% of gun dealers sell zero-crime guns. I mean, that is a great mark for the gun industry. That shows that if you pay attention to these obvious indicators of trafficking and straw buying, you can actually stop supplying crime guns. The problem is these bad actors. And there's no good reason why manufacturers don't say, "Look, if you're sellin' our guns, use best practices.
Which is why Mexico filed its other lawsuit…against gun manufacturer, Smith & Wesson.
Under U.S. law, gunmakers have typically been shielded from liability when one of their guns is used in a crime.
But Mexico is arguing the manufacturer is "aiding and abetting" gun trafficking to the cartels. In court, Smith & Wesson called that allegation "not true. " They did not respond to our request for comment.
Sharyn Alfonsi: How can you say manufacturers are responsible for anything when there are so many steps in the process between the time that they make it and it goes to the retailer, and then maybe it's sold to somebody else or resold? How can you trace it back and say, "It's the manufacturers…"
Jonathan Lowy: When manufacturers make the decision, "We're gonna sell guns through dealers no matter what their record is, no matter how many crime guns they're sellin.'" You know, that's on them.
Sharyn Alfonsi: You say they know that the guns are going to the gun stores that are bad actors. How do they know?
Jonathan Lowy: Well, manufacturers, and dealers, and distributors all get trace data. That is when law enforcement recovers a gun in crime, they determine its commercial history. And every seller in every point of the chain knows that that's a gun that they sold, that was recovered in [a] crime.
If Mexico's lawsuit is successful, it could open the door for more lawsuits foreign and domestic - against the gun industry.
Earlier this year, gun manufacturers successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case.
They argued they could face years of costly litigation by another country that is "...trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun-control measures."
Three years after the deadly battle that ended with his release….fentanyl drug lord Ovidio Guzmán López was finally recaptured in Sinaloa in 2023.
His arrest sparked another gunfight that left 10 soldiers dead.
The violence continues today. In the last four months, cartel in-fighting has killed more than 500 people in Sinaloa.
According to documents obtained by 60 Minutes...47 guns were seized after Guzmán's capture… including an AK-47-style- rifle traced back to one of the defendants in Mexico's lawsuit…Ammo AZ.
Produced by Katie Kerbstat. Associate producer, Erin DuCharme. News associate, Mary Cunningham. Edited by Joe Schanzer.
