MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities arrested a woman guarding an arsenal that included the first anti-aircraft machine gun seized in Mexico, police said Tuesday.
The arsenal belonged to a group linked to the powerful Beltran-Leyva drug cartel in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, federal police coordinator Gen. Rodolfo Cruz said. It also included ammunition, five rifles, a grenade and part of a grenade launcher.
Mexican drug cartels, battling a fierce crackdown by soldiers and federal police, have increasingly gotten hold of higher-powered weapons, leaving police grossly outgunned.
Cruz said police on a routine patrol Monday found the anti-aircraft gun fitted atop an SUV at a house in northern Sonora state. Authorities did not release any other details.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has traced some guns seized during drug violence in Mexico to U.S. commercial sources. President Barack Obama has promised to do more to stop that trafficking.
Also Tuesday, the Mexican army announced the capture a day earlier of Ruben Granados Vargas, an alleged lieutenant for the Beltran-Leyva cartel, along with two other suspects with four rifles and 2.6 pounds of opium.
