Mexico’s cartels are drowning in cash, fueled by record billions they got from smuggling drugs and people across our southern border. For years, the narrative pinned the escalating violence and bloodshed on U.S. gun smuggling and lax firearm laws. After all, American-made weapons litter Mexican crime scenes. But what if the truth is far different? Today, a former federal agent flips the script with a jaw dropping twist: many of the U.S. guns used in cartel crimes were bought by Mexico’s own government.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Deadly shootouts and clashes with police are a daily reality among Mexico’s killer cartels. As a result, Mexico’s gun homicide rate is 2–3 times worse than the U.S. Over 21,700 gun murders in 2022. It’s a flashpoint in the debate over firearms and crime and who’s to blame. Mexico and gun control advocates have long blamed smuggling and America’s loose gun laws.

That’s the story John Dodson says he was told throughout his 15 years as a Special Agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, ATF.

John Dodson: Ever since I was first assigned to work firearms trafficking on the Southwest border, it has widely been reported and utilized that the U.S. civilian firearms market is responsible for the majority of crime guns being recovered in Mexico.

Sharyl: So we’re to blame for a lot of guns being used to kill people and do cartel crimes?

Dodson: We are to blame, our civilian firearms market, our right to bear arms is to blame for the violence in Mexico and along the southwest border.

But that’s a narrative, he says, that’s upended by the surprising truth.

Dodson: The vast majority of crime guns recovered in Mexico are purchased directly by the Mexican government.

Tracing data confirms it. Most of the U.S. firearms recovered from Mexican crime scenes weren’t trafficked or smuggled. They were legally purchased by the Mexican government.

Exact numbers are hard to come by but a 2023 State Department report confirms the U.S. approved $147.7 million in small arms sales to Mexico from companies like Sig Sauer and Glock. Still more weapons are supplied through U.S. Foreign Military Sales.

Sharyl: Why is the U.S. government selling so many guns to the Mexican government?

Dodson: When we first started telling the Mexicans, ‘You have to do something to stop the drug trafficking coming north of the border,’ the Mexican authorities needed resources and funds to do that. So we started funding these operations, providing them with military surplus equipment, helicopters, firearms, providing them with hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase equipment. Much of that firearms.

Dodson says his eyes were first opened back in 2009 as to how many of those legally sold guns end up in the wrong hands.

At the time, he was assigned to Operation “Fast and Furious.” That’s where U.S. agents were secretly ordered to let thousands of U.S. guns reach the cartels.

(Sharyl Attkisson story, CBS News, March 3, 2011)

John Dodson, a federal agent, says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.

Sharyl: You were intentionally letting guns go to Mexico.

Dodson: Yes ma’am, I mean the agency was.

When one of those guns was implicated in the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, Dodson blew the whistle in a story I broke on CBS News.

(Sharyl Attkisson story, CBS News, March 3, 2011)

Dodson’s job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen. Dodson’s bosses say that never happened. Now he’s risking his job to go public.

Dodson: I’m boots on the ground her in Phoenix and telling you we’ve been doing it every day since I’ve been here. Here I am. Tell me I didn’t do the things that I did. Tell me you didn’t order me to do the things that I did. Tell me it didn’t happen. Now you have a name on it and you have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn’t happen.

But before the Fast and Furious scandal, Dodson was already onto another. He says he queried ATF’s gun tracing network. And he saw that most of the U.S. guns turning up at cartel crime scenes were originally sold to the Mexican government.

Sharyl: When you first saw that, do you remember, was that like a ‘wow’ moment for you, as well?

Dodson: Yeah. Yeah. Flabbergasted.

Sharyl: So you must have told everybody, including your supervisor, so they knew?

Dodson: Yes. Yes. I’ve been pounding this drum for what, almost 16 years now. I’ve brought this up to every supervisor I’ve had with ATF since 2009. I’ve taken this as far through my chain of command as I can take it. Up until the day I retired, I even spoke to the highest ranking DOJ official in Mexico City and showed them this data and nothing has changed.

So how are so many legally-sold guns making it from the Mexican government into the hands of killer cartels? Believe it or not, the State Department only audits a tiny sample to find out — less than 1% of foreign sales. But the results are disturbing. In 2009, 26% of the arms had been “diverted” to criminals.

A “sensitive” cable, uncovered by WikiLeaks, confirms it. The State Department wanted Mexico to answer “how [an] AR-15” type semi-automatic rifle bought by the Mexican military got “diverted” into criminal hands. And, more importantly, where other rifles from the same shipment went: “Please account for the current location of the 1,030 AR-15 type rifles,” reads the U.S. government cable. There’s no response in the record.

Dodson: The number one dealer on that every time is the Mexican government for whatever 12-month period you want to pick between now and when we launched Spanish e-Trace in 2009.

We reviewed data from 2016 to 2023. It confirms the Mexican government was the top buyer of U.S. guns later traced to crime scenes in Mexico. This document shows the Mexican military, listed as “dealer,” purchased more than 2,000 from 2016 through 2021. This 2023 document sources a year’s worth of U.S. guns from Mexican crime scenes: 779 of them were originally bought by the Mexican government. No other source is anywhere close.

The State Department, which oversees foreign weapons sales, declined our interview request and wouldn’t answer any of our questions. We also couldn’t get any information from the Justice Department or the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. The State Department has told Congress, its priority is national security.

While U.S. and Mexican forces continue fight brutal cartel violence, Dodson warns that the U.S. is inadvertently arming the very criminals it aims to stop.

Sharyl: What are your thoughts about whether the U.S. government should be selling so many guns to Mexico, even if the purchases at the time are legal, when so many of the guns end up in criminal hands?

Dodson: From what I know, the amount of those firearms that are ending up being diverted to the black market, I would cease and desist all transactions with the Mexican government when it comes to firearms. And I would ask them for a strict and thorough accounting of everything that they have purchased and where is it, what can they lay their hands on right now? We have people on the border right now laid up in observation points along the border, risking their lives, and yet we are supplying the cartels with the firearms. It has to stop. It’s lunacy.

Sharyl (on-camera): For more on this story, listen to my podcast Full Measure After Hours.

Watch video here.