Mexico sues 5 Arizona gun dealers accused of role in weapons trafficking

The Mexican government filed a lawsuit against five Arizona gun dealers that it claims are responsible for the trafficking of illegal weapons into Mexico.

The lawsuit, which was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Arizona, claims that the gun dealers “systematically participate” in trafficking weapons and ammunition to cartels in Mexico by supplying gun traffickers. The dealers are helping cause the deadly cartel violence that occurs in Mexico, the lawsuit claims.

“We are suing them because clearly there is a pattern, we contend that it is obvious that there is weapons trafficking and that it is known that these guns are going to our country,” Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said in a video shared to Twitter on Monday.

“If we do not stop this large influx of weapons to Mexico, how could we stop the violence here?” Ebrard said.

Mexico’s new lawsuit comes a little over a week after a U.S. federal judge dismissed the country’s previous $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers. Mexico said it plans to appeal the decision.

The five Arizona dealers named in the lawsuit are Sprague’s Sports, SNG Tactical, Ammo AZ, Diamondback Shooting Sports and Loan Prairie D/B/A The Hub. Three of the gun shops are located in Tucson, one in Phoenix and one in Yuma.

The lawsuit claims the five dealers named are among the worst gun trafficking offenders in the country and alleges they have turned Arizona into an “epicenter of this unlawful trafficking.”

The lawsuit took specific aim at the dealers’ alleged participation in straw purchasing, which is when someone buys a gun on behalf of someone else. Following the straw sale, the guns ultimately end up in the hands of cartels in Mexico, the lawsuit alleges.

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Veerachart Murphy, owner of Ammo AZ in Phoenix, dismissed the lawsuit as a political move on behalf of the Mexican government and said he wants to sue the government and Ebrard for defamation.

“The lawsuit is absolutely asinine to accuse me of trafficking guns across the border to the cartel,” Murphy said. “You can't just say that about a gun store on international news and get away with it.”

Murphy said he works with agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives almost on a daily basis to prevent gun trafficking and invited Ebrard to spend a week at his store for him to analyze the transactions and try to identify what he believes to be a straw purchase.

“(Ebrard) thinks he can go after small mom-and-pop gun stores and try to get a win and that we're just going to lay down and close our doors,” Murphy said.

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Frank Hansen, a member of Sprague’s Sports management team in Yuma, said that, while the team has not seen the complaint, it will happily respond to any allegations.

“Sprague's Sports is a family-owned business, and we are a law-abiding federal firearms licensee and comply with all laws and regulations that govern our business,” Hansen said.

SNG Tactical and Diamondback Shooting Sports declined to comment. Representatives of The Hub could not immediately be reached for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that over the past five years, each of the gun shops is among the 10 dealers with the most crime guns recovered in Mexico and traced back to a dealership in Arizona.

“The cartels that cause such bloodshed and terror in Mexico are able to do so only because of each Defendant’s deliberate decisions made in Arizona,” the lawsuit claims.

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The lawsuit also alleges the dealers contribute to Mexico’s high homicide rate. At least 17,000 homicides in Mexico were linked to trafficked weapons in 2019, according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Mexico’s lawsuit demands for unspecified monetary damages and asks for independent monitors to be appointed to each of the gun dealers to establish, modify and oversee their sales practices for a minimum of 10 years.

The establishment of the monitors will ensure that U.S. federal laws are followed while also preventing the dealers from allegedly continuing to supply cartels in Mexico, the lawsuit says.

“If the United States is asking us to support them — and this a good thing that we would work together to combat fentanyl, chemical ingredients, drug cartels — we also want them to help us reduce this influx of weapons that does us great harm,” Ebrard said.

In Mexico’s previous lawsuit, a federal judge in Boston ruled the claims against gun manufacturers did not overcome the broad protections given to firearms manufacturers by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act passed in 2005.

The law provides extensive immunity to gun-makers from lawsuits when people use their weapons.

Have a news tip or story idea about the border and its communities? Contact the reporter at jcastaneda1@arizonarepublic.com or connect with him on Twitter @joseicastaneda.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona gun dealers accused of trafficking weapons, sued by Mexico