A video widely shared on social media in late May shows a man, wearing a bulletproof vest marked with the logo of a Mexican cartel, carrying a weapon that looks like an AT4 anti-tank rocket launcher. The Russian ambassador to Mexico joined in the debate about the video on Twitter, hypothesising that the weapon was likely sent to Ukraine by the West and that the cartel had bought it on the black market. We investigated this video.
On May 29, a Twitter account called "Sin Censura Tamaulipas" ("Uncensored Tamaulipas") published a video showing two heavily armed men wearing bullet proof vests marked with cartel logos walking alongside a road carrying weapons. The caption of the tweet reads: "These are special forces 19 of #Matamoros #Tamaulipas. You can see a hitman carrying a AT-4 bazooka of gringa origin.” Gringa describes something of foreign origin, usually American.
This tweet has already garnered 118,000 views. And there are a number of other tweets featuring the video that have also garnered hundreds of thousands of views, like this one or this one.
1. When and where was this video filmed? Who are the men in it?
This video was probably filmed in Tamaulipas state, Mexico. The Twitter account "Sin Censura Tamaulipas", where it was first published, specialises in sharing information about this area.
Moreover, the logo on the men’s bullet-proof vests looks a lot like the one belonging to the Scorpions, a faction of the Gulf Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organisations in Mexico. This cartel is primarily based in Tamaulipas state, especially in the towns of Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa. One of its primary activities is drug trafficking. In early March, the Scorpions kidnapped four Americans, ultimately killing two of them in Matamoros.
Our team spoke to a resident of Matamoros, who spoke to us anonymously:
The Gulf Cartel is present in our town, especially the Scorpion faction. The leader of the faction is known as "La Kena" or "El 19". This armed group controls a lot of the business in the city. Many of its members are based in Matamoros and many of them are from here. Even earlier today, I came across several armed men – the kind that you see in the video – in town, just five minutes from my home. It’s normal to see them in the street. When you run into them, you have to just act as if they weren’t there and get as far away from them as possible.
Over the past few weeks, there have been a lot of clashes between the Scorpions and other factions who are fighting for control of territory in the towns of Valle Hermoso and San Fernando [Editor’s note: Valle Hermoso is located around 47 km to the south of Matamoros, while San Fernando is about 140 km away]. It’s possible that the video was filmed there.
Our team wasn’t able to identify the exact location where the video was filmed in Tamaulipas state, nor the exact date when it was filmed. However, when we carried out a reverse image search, we didn’t find any instances of the video online before May 2023.
Our team contacted the city government in Matamoros as well as the Secretary for Public Security in Tamaulipas, but we didn’t get a response from either.
2. What are the weapons seen in the video?
The video includes footage of three different weapons. Our team spoke to several weapons experts, who said that the man on the left is carrying what seems to be an AR-15, M4 or SCAR rifle. All of these are military-grade weapons. The man on the right is carrying a Kalashnikov as well as what looks like an AT4, an 84mm anti-tank rocket launcher, which is able to penetrate armoured vehicles.
What can we tell about the AT4 visible in this video?
Our team spoke to specialists who said that there are a few possibilities for the AT4 in the video. The first is that it is a real AT4, capable of firing an explosive projectile. The second is that it is a training model of the weapon, which wouldn’t actually be able to shoot. And finally, it could be an "airsoft", a replica used for recreational purposes.
Even if the weapon is a real AT4, it is impossible to know if it has been used or not.
"The AT4 is a disposable weapon,” said Andrei Serbin Pont, the director of a research centre in Argentina called CRIES. “Once the ammunition has been fired, the tube is useless. And, actually, it very common for discarded tubes to end up in the hands of civilians or armed groups in, for example, Venezuela [Editor’s note: as in this example.] I have a feeling that the AT4 shown in the video has already been used or that it is a replica. It’s actually pretty common for paramilitary groups to show off discarded tubes on social media to make themselves look powerful."
However, there is a clue that provides us with a bit more information about the AT4: the black and yellow band on it.
A US army manual published in 2010 explains that when there is a black and yellow band on an AT4, it can fire real ammunition. A gold band indicates that the weapon would be used for training purposes (FHT: Field Handling Trainer) and that it doesn’t fire projectiles. Another online manual, this one on Globalsecurity.org, says that training models have gold or yellow bands on them.
Theoretically, an AT4 with a black and yellow band could fire a real projectile – unless it is airsoft. Ryan MacBeth, a US army veteran, pointed out that the yellow stripe visible in the video is particularly large, if you compare it with other images of AT4s with black and yellow bands (like this or like this). This could indicate that the band was added later.
What more do we know about the AT4?
The AT4 is manufactured in Sweden by the company Saab Bofors Dynamics. It’s also manufactured in the United States. This weapon is only used by militaries.
According to the website of the manufacturer, Saab Bofors Dynamics, the AT4 is used by militaries of more than 15 countries. It is currently being used in Ukraine against the Russians. This company also sold this weapon to Venezuela back in the 1980s. The Colombian guerilla group, the FARC, also got their hands on some AT4s – as reported back in 2009. The arms experts who spoke to our team said that it is possible that the AT4 in the video comes from Colombia or another Latin American country.
The Mexican army doesn’t use AT4s. However, there have been a number of videos that have circulated in the past that show narco-traffickers with weapons that look like the AT4 (like this video or this one, both filmed in 2022). Again, however, it is impossible to know if the weapons shown are real rocket launchers or replicas. The specialists who spoke to our team don’t think that cartels have ever used this type of weapon. However, Mexican authorities did seize a number of rocket launchers back in 2020, including several from Tamaulipas.
3. Unfounded claims about the weapon in the video
Shortly after the video was posted online in late May, the Russian embassy in Mexico published a tweet in which it insinuated that the AT4 visible in the footage is likely a weapon sent to Ukraine by the West that was then put up for sale on the global black market by corrupt Ukrainian officials. The tweet was viewed 1.2 million times and garnered more than 13,000 likes.
According to the arms experts who spoke to our team, it’s unlikely that the weapon in the video comes from Ukraine.
"If the cartels could buy weapons destined for Ukraine, we’d see other weapons also proliferating like MANPADS [man-portable air-defence systems]", said Andrei Serbin Pont.
4. Conclusion
This video was likely filmed in Tamaulipas state, in Mexico, by members of a faction of the Gulf Cartel. However, it is impossible to determine if the weapon shown in the footage is a real AT4, a model to be used for training or a BB gun-like replica.
If it is a real AT4, there is also a chance that it has already been used and is thus obsolete. Finally, it is very unlikely that this weapon is linked in any way to weapons sent to Ukraine by the West, even though AT4 are often used there.
