No one knows the precise number of weapons illegally imported from the United States to Mexico, although it is assumed to total hundreds of thousands over the last decade. Mexican officials believe that guns from the United States account for 80 percent of the weapons in this country. The border states of California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, with a total of 12,706 licensed firearms dealers at gun shops and pawnbrokers, are thought to be among the big sources. Mr. Thomas said Florida was also emerging as a major provider of weapons sent by air and sea. Typically, the weapons are smuggled in small shipments, hidden in secret compartments in car doors or washing machines, stashed in stolen automobiles, sent as checked luggage on commercial flights - or, most commonly, carried over the border in a car trunk or a suitcase.
Mexican officials call that last kind of smuggling ant traffic.
The ants, they say, can be members of sophisticated criminal organizations or migrants making a little extra cash. When there are thousands of people crossing the border each day, there are only a certain number that can be stopped and searched, said Nicolas Su rez Valenzuela, intelligence coordinator for the Federal Preventive Police. And usually, it s a very small number. There is always some new way of smuggling guns into the country, he added. We have found guns in boxes of powdered milk.