Posted on 06/01/2023 10:13:47 AM PDT by thegagline
A video posted on social networks shows a person carrying a military-grade grenade launcher during a checkpoint in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.
The weapon, which is only sold to armies and has been widely used during the invasion of Ukraine, was in the hands of a hitman from Los Escorpiones, a cell of the Gulf cartel, which operates in Reynosa.
These are weapons that cost between $20,000 and $60,000 on the black market , with shots that can cost approximately $30,000 per ammunition and require specialized training to operate.
The armed civilian who boasts an embroidered emblem of Los Escorpiones, in addition to carrying the missile launcher, has an Ak47 rifle and wears a tactical vest.
In July 2020, social media users had already shown scenes of a confrontation between armed civilians from the Gulf cartel with opponents from the Northeast cartel, a splinter of Los Zetas.
The videos show the launch of several remote-controlled rockets, commonly propelled by RPG rocket launchers or Javelin models.
In May of that same year, the National Guard secured an arsenal that included anti-aircraft weapons such as Barrett .50 caliber rifles and a Javelin missile launcher; however, it was not until May 29 that a civilian was reported to be carrying a weapon of this type in broad daylight.
Again, in 2020, US authorities had discovered that civilians were acquiring this type of rocket launcher to use within organized crime.
For example, the Sinaloa cartel had supplied these types of weapons, as well as machine guns and grenades, to a cell that operated in Honduras and facilitated cocaine trafficking to the United States.***
(Excerpt) Read more at -milenio-com.translate.goog ...
I saw the video and another freeper thinks it’s an AT4 and not a Javelin - I concur it looks more like an AT4. Just doesn’t appear to have the bulky under tube assembly that the Javelin has in the video.
That all being said - it’s still a rocket launcher....
Was Bruce Cockburn in the area?
Mexico is an enemy state, not a neighbor.
I’m not buying this.... firearms are against the law there.
Everybody knows that.
Sounds like Mexico needs stricter gun laws
But ‘Military Grade’ is better than you can get on the school grounds. They just let us have the ‘civilian Grade’ rocket launchers. They suck eggs comparatively.
Afghanistan and Ukraine weapons. Benghazi II, The sequel.
Holder Game.
Great tune, that one.
L
I could use one of those in case Bill Gates ever flies into our local airport.
Excuse my ignorance.
Who makes an AT4 ?
Where would the cartel buy one?
Is this something that WE(the USA) shipped to Ukraine or some other NATO state? Or is this a Russian weapon?
“Oh boy! This is gittin’ good!!”
A distinction without a whole lot of difference, of course. It will still blow something to smithereens.
That is also the consensus of the Twitter community that it's an AT4, and many South American countries use it.
Apparently Sweden...
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/which-anti-tank-weapon-best-carl-gustav-at4-or-rpg-166110
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeJF3UsAB3o
mea culpa - not my area of expertise :)
From my reading Sweden makes the AT4, this type of weapon was shipped to Ukraine with no oversight and evidently ended up back in Mexico with the drug cartels.
They get stolen in Ukraine by the corrupt government and likely exchange for drug shipments from Mexico.
The Cartels don’t just ship drugs to the USA, they ship them all over the world especially to Europe, I’m sure the corrupt government in Ukraine is in the drug trade and exchange all sorts of military equipment as payment to the Cartels
Wait until you start seeing shoulder fired anti-aircraft systems like Stingers and one of those devices takes down a few Mexican military helicopters or a civilian airliner
2) Cartel would buy them from criminal European "arms dealers", who... most likely got them wholesale from crooked Ukrainian military types looking to make a fast buck.
3) Yes, most likely we, IMHO, would have shipped this weapon to Ukraine as part of one of the many $$BB aid programs. However with it being technically a Swedish weapon, it could have come via Krautland or Poland, one would suppose. Note: Just to be clear, one has read that the American military does use this weapon and many of them have been shipped to Ukraine from US inventory.
Commie Venezuela has sold the AT-4 to the terrorist group FARQ in the past.
Venezuela: The AT4 has been in the Venezuelan arsenal since the 1980s. In 2009, it was reported that AT4s sold to Venezuela had been captured from FARC insurgents in Colombia, leading Colombia to accuse Venezuela of selling the weapons to the insurgents, and Venezuela reporting that they were stolen by a rebel attack on a Venezuelan position in 1995, thus heightening tensions between the two countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT4
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