An American-made sniper rifle capable of firing between 400 and 600 bullets per minute was among the powerful arsenal recovered by Mexican authorities after a belligerent battle with an armed wing of the Sinaloa cartel that left two police officers wounded on Tuesday became .
Security forces seized 10 powerful rifles, including the first shoulder-fired Barrett M82A1 .50 caliber semi-automatic, a machine gun, 12 grenades and 72 rounds of ammunition after arresting 14 members of an armed wing responding to the cartel faction operated by the four sons of Joaquín’El Chapo‘ Guzman, also known as ‘Los Chapitos’.
The Barrett .50 rifle is developed by Tennessee-based Barrett Firearms Manufacturing and sells for up to $8,599.99.
Its bullets are powerful enough to knock down planes and pierce armored vehicles.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Barrett Firearms Manufacturing for comment.
The Barrett M82A1 .50 caliber (circled), an American sniper rifle capable of firing between 400 and 600 rounds per minute, was among the powerful arsenal recovered by Mexican authorities after a warlike battle with an armed wing of the Sinaloa cartel , in which two police officers were injured on Tuesday
Joaquín Guzmán-López (left) and Archivaldo Guzman-Salazar (right) are two of El Chapo’s four sons who are in control of the Sinaloa Cartel. The notorious drug lord is serving a life sentence in the United States
Ovidio Guzman-Lopez (left) and Alfredo Guzman-Salazar (right) are two of El Chapo’s four sons wanted by US authorities
Daniel García, the director of Mexican private security firm Industrial Security Multisystems Group, told the Milenio newspaper that the Barrett .50 can reach targets up to 5,900 feet away.
“It’s for long-range shots. They have a magazine of 10, or in some cases five, useful rounds, and it’s not a repeat weapon, it’s a precision weapon. It is mainly used for long-distance destinations,” he explained.
“It uses copper-jacketed bullets with a steel core and is capable of penetrating tier five or six armor and even walls. It’s a very powerful weapon,” García added.
National Guard and riot police stand guard after a standoff between suspected members of the Sinaloa cartel and police on the Mexico-Cuernavaca federal highway near the Mexican city of San Miguel Topilejo on Tuesday. Two police officers were injured and 14 members of the cartel’s armed wing were taken into custody
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is serving a life sentence in the United States
The Barrett .50 rifle is being developed by Tennessee-based Barrett Firearms Manufacturing. Its bullets are powerful enough to knock down planes and pierce armored vehicles
The .50 caliber Barrett rifle, a weapon of choice for Mexican cartels, was used by suspected henchmen of Jalisco’s new generation cartel in the failed assassination attempt on Mexico City Police Chief Omar García Harfuch on June 26, 2020 .
García Harfuch was wounded. A woman standing near the attack and two police officers were killed.
The gun was abandoned by the fleeing assassins and confiscated by the police.
A Sinaloa cartel agent was caught on video with a Barrett .50 rifle on October 17, 2019 after the criminal organization responded with a military offensive in the western city of Culiacan.
Fearing that innocent civilians would be lost, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered the military to free El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzmán, who was briefly arrested while security forces were executing a warrant for his extradition to the United States.
Fighters from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel also used the semi-automatic rifle to down a helicopter operated by the Michoacán State Attorney General’s Office during a fight between the cartel and authorities in the municipality of La Huacana in September 2016. The pilot and three police officers were killed.
Barrett Firearms Manufacturing is among 11 gun manufacturers the Mexican government is suing for $10 billion in federal court in Massachusetts, accusing them of being responsible for the deadly flood of guns across the border.
As part of the lawsuit filed in August 2021, Mexico alleges this The companies have subverted strict gun laws by designing, marketing and distributing military-style assault weapons in ways they knew would arm drug cartels and fuel killings and kidnappings.
It alleges that more than 500,000 guns are smuggled into Mexico from the United States each year, more than 68 percent of which are made by the gun manufacturers being sued, including Beretta USA, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Colt’s Manufacturing Co., and Glock Inc.
“You know how criminals get their guns,” argued Jonathan Lowy, a lawyer for Mexico, during the 90-minute virtual hearing in April. “You could stop and consciously choose to be blind to the facts.”
Mexico estimates that guns made by the 11 Massachusetts-based gun manufacturers were allegedly used in at least 17,000 murders in 2019.
