Arms cache in Miguel Aleman, biggest seizure in decades

February 9th, 2008

MONTERREY, Mexico — A huge weapons cache found in a ranch building near the Texas border this week was the nation’s single largest weapons bust in 20 years, said the federal attorney general’s office, or PGR, in a statement Friday. A Mexican army unit found the stockpile, which included 89 assault rifles and more than 83,000 rounds of ammunition, on Thursday near Miguel Alemán, a border city just south of Roma, authorities said.

Soldiers also seized about 9 metric tons of marijuana and arrested five people at the ranch, called “El Mezquitito,” the Defense Ministry said in a brief statement.

The latest wave of military and federal police action in the troubled border region continued Friday when police chased and exchanged gunfire with organized crime suspects along the main highway between Matamoros and Ciudad Victoria, authorities said.