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Wednesday, December 17, 2014

German Guns in Mexico and the 5 Levels of Police Collusion

A German Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle
A German Heckler & Koch G36 Assault Rifle with folding stock


A newspaper in Germany reported that 36 German guns were seized from the municipal police in Iguala, Mexico following the September disappearance of 43 student protesters, illustrating the deep ties of these police to the local criminal group Guerreros Unidos.

According to daily newspaper Die Tageszeitung, three dozen Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles -- in addition to Italian and US weaponry -- were among 228 firearms Mexican prosecutors confiscated from police installations in Iguala, in the southern state of Guerrero.

The Mexican government does not issue German weaponry to its armed forces or police. This leads to the presumption that the weapons came from the Iguala police's criminal overlords, the Guerreros Unidos.

Authorities have not yet established whether the German weapons were used to attack the student protesters, who were apparently murdered by members of the Guerreros Unidos working in collaboration with municipal police, possibly on the orders of the local mayor and his wife. 

The whereabouts of all but one of the bodies remains unclear and debate continues over where and how the alleged murders of the students occurred.
Exporting German weapons to states engaged in an armed conflict or with poor human rights records is expressly prohibited. However, according to Germany's Federal Office for Economics and Export Control (BAFA), Heckler & Koch was allowed to export some 9,000 G36 assault rifles to Mexico between 2006 and 2009 with the stipulation that they not be made available in the conflict-ridden states of Guerrero, Jalisco, Chiapas and Chihuahua.

Despite this ban, a journalist with Radio Netherlands cited by Sin Embargo has reported that G36 rifles were used in a previous state police attack on student protesters in Guerrero, in 2011, and that these guns have also showed up in the hands of police in Chihuahua.

According to German peace activist Jürgen Grässlin, holes in Germany's monitoring system have helped facilitate the black market trade in weapons from this country, which is the world's third-largest arms exporter. German arms manufacturer SIG Sauer has also come under fire for illicit arms exports.

InSight Crime Analysis

The weapons are a good place to start when analyzing levels of collusion between security forces, police and organized crime. A Mexican intelligence agent, speaking on condition of anonymity, told InSight Crime that his agency counts five levels of collusion between police and criminal groups.


Level 1: The police simply allow criminal groups to act without interfering.
Level 2: The police accept (or demand) payment for allowing criminal groups to act without interfering.
Level 3: The police protect criminal groups and their enterprises for a fee.
Level 4: The police work for the criminal groups and their enterprises for a fee.
Level 5: The criminal group runs the police as part of the criminal enterprise.
The discovery of the German weapons appears to make for a Level 5 situation, the intelligence official said.

To be sure, the fact that the Iguala municipal police were in possession of prohibited firearms suggests that they acquired them from criminals with access to black market weaponry -- most likely the Guerreros Unidos. If this is the case, it indicates the deep integration of the Iguala police into this drug gang, which may have seen the police as their "men" who they needed to better arm.


In some ways, this is the reverse of what is more commonly seen with arms: security force weapons falling into the hands of criminals (weapons recovered from Mexican cartels have been traced to Guatemalan and Honduran military stocks). That would be something closer to a Level 3 scenario.
In this case, the police were the recipients, rather than the providers, of black market weapons. Mexico's municipal police forces tend to be underfunded and lack adequate equipment, which may have incentivized the illegal purchase of high-power firearms for what the criminal group considers part of their armed wing. 

The weapons are just one piece of evidence of a Level 5 collusion. In this rather blatant case, the police are thought to have literally corralled the students and handed them to the criminal group. Normally, the evidence is not so stark; in the less obvious cases, a peek at the guns could be a good way to start figuring out who is working for whom.


SEE ALSO: Mexico News and Profiles

Posted originally on Insight crime

37 comments:

  1. You people just don't get it.
    The "overlords" are not the "criminal groups".
    It's ONE criminal group made up of cartels, police and armed forces.
    The overlords are the political parties in power of the different regions.
    Up to the time when the PRI lost the first presidential elections, the PRI was the only overlord.
    As other political parties came to power, national or regional, organized crime became "disorganized" and without one overlord, had to to go to war against each other.
    Again, I mean the different political parties as overlords.

    ReplyDelete
  2. German weapons are BETTER than US guns.
    Just higher quality workmanship.

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    Replies
    1. Couldn't agree with you more, pretty much anything that is made in the US is garbage..

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    2. Obviously you know nothing about firearms and probably never seen a German made anything. Most "foreign" firearms are made in the US including Glock, Walther, Sig Sauer, Beretta and H&K's. They initially started being produced in their European countries but now are manufactured in the US for the American buyers. Try again rookies. The only garage is coming from your keyboards.

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  3. Well maybe Hk is selling them directly to the bad guys.

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    Replies
    1. There are mexican cartel cells in Europe, maybe they bought the weapons there "legally" and then sended them to their crimininal associates back in mx illegally. That is the same thing they do in the USA cartel cells buy the weapons "legally" then they transport them back to mx illegally through the border hidden.

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    2. Unlike in US, it is not possible for individuals or private entities to buy assault rifles legally in Germany /Europe. Instead I firmly believe that those weapons have been sold to a Mexican government agency and from there they went to the hand of the cartels / local police.

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    3. Yeah that is why I said "legally"

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  4. So now after all the articles on how the Federal Police were involved it might be possible that is not true?

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  5. Nations that produce weapons or have companies that produce weapons need a market to sell their products. Weapon manufactures don't care who the end consumer is so long as the product gets out the door and money exchanges hands.

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  6. Im not buying this story one bit from bb or any entity. Its so easy to put the blame on someone (s). Its done all the time in mexico to put the make the public to look elsewhere.

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  7. Who cares where the guns are from. They kill period.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Drugs don't kill.
      People kill.

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    2. THEY BOTH KILL FOOLS.

      GUNS DELIVER THE BULLETS THAT CAN KILL.
      DRUGS HAS THE POISON THAT CAN KILL.

      THOSE TWO IN THE WRONG HANDS. & IS GAME OVER.

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  8. Damn Germans.....hey Millie go ahead and rant on how you believe the US government forced the Germans to sell their weapons to the narcos. I know you want to. It's what you do best.

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    Replies
    1. Ahaha. millie the monster the hater of the US

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    2. Capitalist bourgeoisie will be capitalist bourgeoisie no matter where they go.

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    3. I don't know who Millie is, but sounds funny.

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    4. 5:09 Oh no poor cartel thugs they don't know how to get their weapons. They don't even know how to make drugs nor how to murder the ppl. ... What a joke

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    5. I coined "Millie" and Willie" after
      Millie is the longwinded "Mil Mascaras" and WIllies are the ones whose comments confused me ( "what cha talkin bout willis" )

      Delete
  9. This article suggests that the Mexican police use several HK weapons.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Police_%28Mexico%29#Weapons

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  10. ...BS... The H&K G36 is used by many Federal, City, State agencies legally, but that does not mean the are not provided to criminals just like the Ar15's,10's, 50 Cal's are let alone the major shipping containers of AK47's which are all over Mexico...

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    Replies
    1. You got a point there. And when a city/state/any place is runned by thugs.. where do those weapons fall?. they fall on the hands of the same facking criminal rrats! isn't that some bulldonkeyshit!?

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  11. I think the MX authorities are often outgunned by the cartels so maybe they're personally upgrading their arsenal. Bit like Dirty Harry with his Magnum.

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  12. --Mil mascaras, aka la malinche, alias picahontas, alias EBS alias whining whinie winnie, aka las panties de enrique francisco galindo ceballos, la adelita defensora del ejercito, el paracaidista de los calzonesde paracaidista, has so many masks, i quit counting at one thousand, mil, mascaras,
    --The guy you call millie is his worst nightmare, it did not take long or much to bring down this most pompous of the arseholes, and it is my pride and joy to have put mil mascaras on his place, also blackeyes jay, and others, nothing personal, but nobody needs to read their malicious rants about the poor taking responsibility or having too many children when they do not even have any schooling...
    --willis is the guy who never understands what you are talking about and always puts you down...
    --i like to keep my ducks in a row, chivis...
    --You can do better chivaaa!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. aww you are so predictable amigo. I knew:

      A. you would weigh in
      B. I only do better where better is warranted

      However, WIllis/WIlle is my creation and is rarely "putting me down" although it is intirely possible on occasion that may be the case, but not at all the point. The point is simple "What are you saying exactly, because I am not not understanding your comment" its just for my clarification, albeit I have used "willie" to bitch slap a willie on steroids.

      Most amazing comment regarding referring to a commenter as a willie, he/she was genuinely hurt, saying no one ever accused her/him of being a willie before, and proceeded to explain her/himself. I try to make sure people know I use the phrase with love, that is the name WIllie,

      as for Millie, well not so much. Well maybe a little. But your are annoying as all hell, that said, I think you add spice to BB in some strange, weird, unexplainable way.

      Life can't be all about salt and pepper, right Mils?..........................Paz

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    2. As in Gary Colman on the '80's sitcom Different Strokes, "whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?"?

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  13. This is BS BAJA CALIFORNIA STATE POLICE PEP ARE ISSUED G36 C ASSAULT RIFLES.

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  14. This is not accurate. The army uses standard issue HK G3's in Mexico not all but most of them do they carry .308 that's also a main reason the cartels get their asses handed to them while they use mostly ak's and ar's

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    Replies
    1. The following countries make G3 under license ,France (MAS), Greece (Hellenic Arms Industry), Iran (Defense Industries Organization), Luxembourg (Luxemburg Defense Technologi), Mexico, Myanmar, Norway (Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk), Pakistan (Pakistan Ordnance Factories), Portugal (FBP), Saudi Arabia, Sweden (FFV), Thailand, Turkey (MKEK) and the United Kingdom (Royal Ordnance). You are just assuming that all H&K weapons used in Mexico are built in Germany. The article is about GERMAN supplied weapons , unless you have checked all the serial numbers you are just guessing

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    2. There you go. That explains how thug rrats get their dirty hands on the 'german weapons'

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  15. The majority the Mexican military I have seen carry HK 91's .308 cal. So I don't think if some units have the G models we should jump to conclusions.

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  16. Serial numbers can also be put on the weapons, or no serial numbers at all...
    --Articles say export forbidden, german weapons...
    --you may want to suggest that the guerrilla drug trafficking students from ayotzinapa planted the weapons on the poor suffering municipal police, after extorting the guerrero people with their murderous tin cans to buy those expensive weapons...
    --The federal government invests billions of pesos in the name of economic recovery and development, steals all the money and leaves its officers to kidnap, traffic drugs and extort, divided and fighting among themselves to be no1 all the time...

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  17. Meh, HKs are police weapons. I would expect a police force to have them. No biggie.

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  18. Central American press agencies regularly misidentify weapons. To them any small machine gun is called an Uzi. These rifles will need to be identified by serial numbers and even then Mexico makes a domestic assault rifle called the Xiuhcoatl FX-05 that with the exception of interal parts looks just like a HK G36. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FX-05_Xiuhcoatl

    ReplyDelete

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