Nearly half of powerful .50-caliber ammo seized by Mexican government came from US Army plant, defense minister says
A United States Army ammunition plant was the source of almost half of all the .50-caliber rifle rounds seized by Mexican authorities over more than a decade, the country’s defense minister told reporters Tuesday, after an investigation by the ICIJ and media partners revealed how the powerful ammunition has been used by Mexican drug cartels in attacks on the government and civilians.
“According to the records we have,” Defense Minister Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo said during a presidential news conference, “137,000 cartridges have been seized since 2012. Of those, 47% come from that company and have been sold in gun shops in the southern United States,” referring to the Lake City plant.
The sprawling, government-owned facility, which is located outside of Kansas City, Missouri, is the largest manufacturer of rifle rounds for the U.S. military and has been a major supplier of ammunition to American consumers for over two decades.
Agreements between the U.S. Army and the private contractors that run Lake City have allowed .50-caliber ammunition and components made at the plant to enter retail markets and fall into the hands of Mexican cartels, according to millions of pages of court documents, seizure records and government data obtained by ICIJ and its partners.
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