Citation(s) from the GunPolicy.org literature library
UNODC. 2012 ‘How Is the Trafficking Conducted?.’ Transnational Organized Crime in Central America and the Caribbean: A Threat Assessment, pp. 61-62. Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 1 September
Relevant contents
How is the trafficking conducted?
Given the overall surplus of weapons in the region, there are two sets of flows: movement of weapons within countries and across the borders within the region, and movement of weapons from Central America to other countries, particularly Colombia and Mexico. Military and police stockpiles in Honduras, El Salvador (80), and Guatemala (81) have been identified as the largest sources of illegal firearms in the region…(82)
But two other countries are also important in this trade: Nicaragua and Panama…
A study produced this year by UNODC estimates that 36% of the illegal firearms trafficked to Colombia originate in Central America, particularly from Nicaragua and Panama…(84)
Sources cited:
80) In April 2012, the Attorney General of El Salvador (Fiscalía General de la República) ordered the arrest of 8 military officials for illegal possession of weapons of war, storage and trade of illegal weapons.
See: http://www.laprensagrafica.com/el-salvador/lodeldia/256730-prision-preventiva-paramilitares
81) In December 2011, the Military Court of Guatemala started investigating cases related to the disappearance of rifles, pistols, machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades and military ammunitions from several military stockpiles.
82) Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG), Armas de Fuego y Municiones en Guatemala, (Guatemala, 2009); Instituto de Enseñanza para el Desarrollo Sostenible (IEPADES), El Tráfico Ilícito de Armas en Guatemala (Guatemala, 2006).
84) Stohl, R. and D. Tuttle Small Arms Trade in Latin America. Washington D.C., North American Congress on Latin America, 2008.