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The Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry in Nogales, Sonora in November 2021.

Two Mexican men were sentenced to prison Wednesday for attempting to smuggle weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition into Mexico through Nogales, Ariz., in two separate cases from last summer. Read more»

Another pillar of the strategy of outside pressure is the fact that other countries are not as constrained by the gun lobby as politicians and organizations within the United States are.

Gun violence and trafficking prevention advocates have found a dependable ally in Mexico, whose government recently brought a second lawsuit against the U.S. firearms industry for negligent business practices. Read more»

A member of the National Guard working at the Mariposa border crossing in Nogales in 2018.

A 23-year-old man was sentenced to 27 months in prison for illegally buying at least 82 firearms from more than a dozen gun stores across Arizona and re-selling the weapons, including one linked to a murder in Mexico. Read more»

An officer with U.S. Customs and Border Protection walks through the Mariposa Port of Entry in January 2019.

A Tucson man was sentenced to three years in prison for illegally selling firearms without a license, after prosecutors successfully proved he bought and sold nearly 40 firearms, including a half-dozen .50-caliber sniper rifles and 5 belt-fed rifles made for the civilian market. Read more»

A member of the National Guard working at the Mariposa border crossing in Nogales in 2018.

Two brothers from Phoenix were part of a scheme to buy and sell guns through social media, including several weapons and a hand grenade they sold to an undercover officer even after they were told the weapons would be smuggled into Mexico. Read more»

A member of the National Guard working at the Mariposa border crossing in Nogales in 2018.

A former Arizona Department of Corrections officer was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to smuggling two belt-fed rifles, an AK-47 and 500 AK-47 magazines into Mexico. Read more»

U.S. Customs officers arrested two men as they attempted to walk from Nogales, Ariz., into Mexico with four semi-automatic rifles strapped to their torsos, officials said. Read more»

The Browning .30-caliber machine gun found by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers on Saturday in Nogales.

A Browning .30-caliber machine gun, along with more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition, was seized at a Nogales border crossing Saturday, officials said. Read more» 1

A CBP officer in Nogales, Arizona in 2019.

A Las Vegas man who engaged in an armed standoff with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Lukeville, Arizona in 2019 was found guilty of impeding and threatening federal officers, and smuggling firearms and ammunition into Mexico. John Milton Lee, 62, planned to drive weapons to Guatemala, but was turned back by Mexican authorities. Read more»

A modified Mini Draco AK-47

A 25-year-old man was sentenced to 12 years in prison Monday by a federal judge in Tucson after he pleaded guilty to straw-purchasing dozens of firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition and smuggling them into Mexico, as well as trafficking fentanyl into the U.S. Read more»

A case of ammunition for AK-47-patterned rifles found inside the engine compartment of a Nissan pickup truck.

A U.S. citizen was arrested last week after Nogales-area U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found 13,000 rounds of ammunition meant for assault rifles, along with 16 magazines, stashed in his pickup. Read more»

Soldiers use electric saws to destroy rifles, handguns and other weapons turned in as part of the guns for cash program in Juarez.

In an effort to reduce gun smuggling, the Mexican government is suing a group of gun manufacturers — including Glock, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing and Colt’s Manufacturing — in the United States, and the first hearing was held last week in Boston. Read more»

An Arizona Department of Public Safety trooper arrested a 24-year-old Nevada man and seized five AK-47 assault rifles during a traffic stop in March, 2018, on I-10 near Marana.

The proposed "U.S.-Mexico Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities," which, like the Mérida Initiative before, approaches the problems of drug trafficking, violence, and abuse on the basis of the countries’ "shared responsibility" for the problems. Read more»

A U.S. CBP officer at the Nogales Port of Entry in Jan. 2019.

A driver for the U.S. consulate in Nogales, Sonora, was sentenced Monday to nearly four years in prison for attempting to smuggle more than a dozen firearms into Mexico last year, including a .50-caliber sniper rifle. Read more»

Two AK-47-style rifles, 3,000 rounds of ammunition and the tripod for a .50-caliber sniper rifle seized in March 2016 by Nogales-area U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.

The Mexican government filed a lawsuit Wednesday against seven U.S. gun manufacturers, arguing that the companies are responsible for a "deadly flood" of weapons that invariably "wreak havoc in Mexican society." Read more»

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