San Luis Potosí, Mexico — The governor of San Luis Potosí says the U.S. government is interested in knowing the origin of the weapons that his government has seized. On Tuesday, San Luis Potosi Governor Ricardo Gallardo Cardona announced the start of an investigation by U.S. authorities.
During a Tuesday meeting with Roger Rigaud, the United States Consul General in Monterrey, they agreed American officials would review close to a thousand weapons seized during joint operations between state forces and national security.
He said the purpose is to find out where they are coming from and generate support strategies.
The two had met to sign security, migration and social assistance agreements.
“(We sign) agreements that we have for the collaboration of the origin of the weapons that we have already collected, so many weapons that have been seized in San Luis Potosí,” he said.
Rigaud said that he recognizes the challenges that exist in Mexico and that the security issue is one of the important ones in which they will support Mexico, mainly San Luis Potosí.
Governor Ricardo Gallardo stressed weekend operations that lead to the seizure of more than 6,000 doses of drugs and 45 weapons. He said that during his administration alone, police have seized around 1,000 weapons, which was one of the reasons for the Consul meeting.
“They are going to check weapon by weapon to see if they come from the United States or from other countries. They are going to send their people to have direct contact with the Prosecutor’s Office and the FGR that have the warehouses.
In San Luis Potosí, four 50-caliber Barrett firearms were seized in recent months. We did not keep them. They are in the hands of the Mexican Army and they are going to be reviewed to find out the origin of these weapons.”
Neither of the two authorities provided information on the limits of this cooperation to review seized weapons, nor the conditions that the Mexican government could impose for sovereignty and internal security issues.
