By the end of 2020, the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH) announced that gunsmithing companies headquartered in Europe and Israel export thousands of weapons to the country for the use of the state and municipal police; however, their use is not exclusive to security elements but also to organized crime groups.
According to the study Deadly Trade: How European and Israeli arms exports fuel violence in Mexico by CMDPDH, between 2006 and 2018, more than 238 thousand weapons were exported to the national territory, which is sold to local police forces in 32 states of the Mexican Republic.
More than 95 percent of said weapons are classified as “reserved for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.”That is, its sale to civilians is severely restricted.
This study shows that, at that time, Israel Weapons Industries sold 23,772 weapons to the Mexican government for 650 million pesos. Included in this purchase are 16,442 Galil or Tavor assault rifles, full automatic and semi-automatic military-grade assault rifles. As well as 7,398 Jericho pistols and many Uzi semi-automatic rifles, Negev sniper rifles, etc.
Narco left the police unarmed
The Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights established that “in addition to the use of these weapons by the police, many of them end up in the hands of the cartels”.
“More than 2,600 of these assault rifles were delivered to Tamaulipas, Guerrero, and Jalisco, states that represent 60% of illegal gun confiscations in Mexico. Of the approximately 61 thousand illegal weapons seized by the Mexican Army between 2010 and May 2020, identified by the manufacturer, 41 were weapons from Israel Weapons Industries (including 12 in Michoacán, 3 in Veracruz and Guerrero, and 6 in Tamaulipas)”, reads the study.
According to figures from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), Aguascalientes, Campeche, Chihuahua, Mexico City, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco State of Mexico, Morelos, Nuevo León, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, and Sinaloa are the entities where there has been an increase in intentional killings during the first four months of 2023.
One of the weapons that reached the national territory, the Tavor, was considered “one of the main assault rifles used by the Israeli Army against Palestinian protests in Gaza,” according to information from the Commission.
