Six Men Charged In Texas Over Buying Rifles And Ammo For The Sinaloa Cartel

Six men have been indicted by a federal grand jury over attempts to buy guns and ammo in Texas to later smuggle across the border to the Sinaloa Cartel.

Concretely, the men were charged with counts of trafficking in firearms, straw purchase of guns and making false statements.

The men were spotted by undercover agents at a gun show in El Paso in late January. They saw one of the men, Daniel Feliciano Ayala Murillo, directing two people to buy a rifle and 2,000 bullets, the complaint affidavit said, according to Border Report. Another man, Elvin Sebastian Ibarez, also showed a similar behavior.

The agents, working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, had seen Ayala and Ibarez giving people cash outside the show. They all then drove away but were later arrested by authorities. Ayala said he is a member of the Sinaloa Cartel and intended to deliver the weapons across the border. He added that he hired his nephews with his mission, while Ibarez claimed to be hired through social media and paid $100 for each gun purchased.

The episode is one of many that take place at the southern border and has led Mexican administrations to sue U.S. gunmakers, alleging that most guns used by cartels come from the country.

A recent report by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), revealed in January that almost three quarters of weapons in fact come from U.S. manufacturers.

The document said most firearms come from Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. The findings, part of the National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment (NFCTA), highlight the persistent flow of weapons across the border fueling violence in Mexico.

Northern Mexican states like Sonora, Baja California, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas are the main destinations for these firearms. Guanajuato, in central Mexico, has also emerged as a hotspot for cartel-related violence, fueled in part by this illegal trade. Among the key trafficking routes, the Arizona-to-Sonora corridor stands out.

More than 80% of firearms recovered in Mexico were found in areas dominated by two powerful cartels: the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS) and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has identified these groups as the most influential criminal organizations in Mexico. Additionally, the ATF report showed that U.S.-sourced firearms have also been trafficked to countries beyond Mexico, including Canada, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Brazil.

Mexico has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against six gun manufacturers based in the United States, seeking to hold them responsible for deaths from guns trafficked into Mexico. However, a judge dismissed it last August based on a lack of jurisdiction, ruling that the connections of the gun manufacturers to the state of Massachusetts, where the suit was brought, were not substantial.