Mexico signs deal to expand US weapons tracking program

Mexico signs deal to expand US weapons tracking program
by Staff Writers Mexico City (AFP) Oct 5, 2010 Mexico on Tuesday signed a deal to extend a US weapons tracking program across the country as part of a crackdown on its vicious drug gangs, which are mainly armed with US-bought firearms. US and Mexican justice officials also signed an accord to buy equipment to fight money laundering by Mexican drug gangs, funded with 2.9 million dollars which had been laundered through a US bank.
Mexico has long criticized the role of US gun shops in supplying drug gangs it blames for more than 28,000 deaths in the past three and a half years.
The US eTrace program will be deployed across Mexico, in Spanish, to speed up the registering and tracking of weapons, the justice officials said, after a day-long joint workshop in Mexico City.
"We're convinced that this will be a useful tool," Mexican Attorney General Arturo Chavez Chavez told journalists.
The eTrace program exists in more than 50 countries worldwide and traced approximately 340,000 firearms traces last year, mainly from the United States, said John Hageman, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Weapons traffickers who supply Mexican gangs operate all over the United States, Hageman said.
"The majority of weapons that are recovered in Mexico and traced by ATF are sourced in the United States," Hageman said.
The ATF last month set up seven new groups across the United States to combat illegal firearms trafficking to Mexico under its Project Gunrunner.

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