Drug syndicates have used .50-caliber ammunition, produced at a plant owned by the U.S. Army and then smuggled across the border, in attacks on Mexican civilians and police.
Ben Dooley, Isabella Cota and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega
The New York Times, February 7, 2026
On the morning of Nov. 30, 2019, a convoy of pickup trucks carrying men armed with a heavy machine gun and powerful .50-caliber rifles entered the Mexican town of Villa Unión and opened fire.
The men had been sent on a mission of intimidation: They planned to set fire to the town hall. Their superior firepower pinned down state and local police officers as they waited for military reinforcements. Terrorized residents scrambled to take cover from the hail of bullets.
The smell of smoke filled the streets and spent casings covered the ground like “fallen leaves,” said Luis Manzano, a Mexican journalist who drove into town during the shooting. But his most vivid memory was the thunder of .50-caliber guns. The “ground trembled” as they fired, he said. “I had never experienced anything like that.”
The military drove off the assailants. In the end, four police officers, two civilians and 19 cartel members were killed. Afterward, as investigators collected evidence from the scene, they gathered at least 45 .50-caliber casings stamped with the initials “L.C.”
