Ohio, United States.- Two Ohio men were arrested for allegedly trying to send several dozen firearms to drug cartels in Mexico, the attorney for the Middle District of Florida reported.
According to Fox News, Yuendry Rodriguez Hilario, 28, and Saleh Yusuf Saleh, 24, were apprehended on March 2 by undercover officers. They were charged with conspiring to transport firearms, possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking, and other crimes.
The agents posed as members of a Mexican drug cartel and made contact with the suspects in 2021, who described selling AR-15 and AK-47 rifles, as well as offering cocaine and fentanyl for distribution.
Hilario and Saleh are being accused of arranging the sale of 90 rifles and a silenced submachine gun to undercover agents in Ohio and Florida at the end of 2021, according to the US media portal.
The suspects are in pretrial detention and could face up to life in prison. Both allegedly confessed to arms trafficking during post-arrest interviews.
The United States has turned its attention to combating Mexican cartels since four US citizens were kidnapped and two of them murdered in Matamoros.
This Tuesday, during his daily conference, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked the United States to demonstrate its interest in weakening drug cartels, stopping the sale of high-powered weapons to criminal organizations.
The Government of Mexico presented a video that the Mexican consuls in the United States should broadcast, where it is warned that the strength of the drug lords that operate in national territory comes from the millionaire financing that they obtain from the sale of drugs in the US market.
In addition, it is detailed that in 70 percent of the executions registered in Mexico, the weapons used come from the United States, where a series of criticisms and questions of the security strategy against the cartels have been unleashed.
