Mexico City, Mexico - Mexican authorities seized 210 firearms that were smuggled into the country from Texas by organized crime groups, Security Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch said on Monday.
The Mexican government has repeatedly demanded the US clamp down on the illegal flow of weapons across the border, saying the arms are fueling the country's war against the illegal drug trade and powerful organized crime cartels.
Mexico City confiscated 195 rifles, 15 handguns, and 93 magazines that were found stashed in two trucks traveling on a highway in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, near to the US border, Garcia Harfuch wrote on X.
Three people were arrested in the operation to over their attempt to transport from Texas "a high-powered arsenal destined for criminal groups in Mexico."
"This action was the result of intelligence and investigative efforts to identify and dismantle the routes used to illegally introduce weapons into our country," Garcia Harfuch wrote in a statement translated from Spanish.
"With this seizure, the total exceeds 30,000 firearms confiscated during the administration of [Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum]," he continued. "These are more than 30,000 weapons that will no longer reach the hands of cartels or be used to generate violence."
"Shared responsibility demands stopping the flow of drugs toward the United States, but it also requires halting, with equal resolve, the flow of weapons from the United States toward Mexico."
Mexico has repeatedly rebuffed criticism from President Donald Trump's administration of Sheinbaum's record in fighting her country's powerful drug cartels.
"Nobody else governs, the people rule," Sheinbaum said in July in response to comments by White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller.
"We're a government of the people… We work every day for security and peace in our country and there are results," Sheinbaum said.