Video of Mexican Cartels Using 'Ukraine-Sourced' Javelin Launcher Debunked

Screenshots and clips taken from a piece of news footage purported to show a Mexican cartel member carrying a U.S.-made portable anti-tank missile launcher, an FGM-148 Javelin, with captions claiming the weapon was smuggled from Ukraine.

But while posts featuring these claims received millions of views on Twitter, Telegram and Reddit, Newsweek Misinformation Watch found multiple inaccuracies that attracted ridicule from military experts and analysts.

Since the start of Russia's invasion, the U.S. and its NATO allies have supplied billions of dollars worth of weapons and ammunition to support Ukraine, raising concerns that some of it could end up in the wrong hands. These fears have been weaponized by pro-Kremlin media outlets and social media accounts spreading misinformation about purported cases of "weapons smuggling."

A number of accounts shared the video clip or screenshots of it on Thursday, claiming that it shows members of a Mexican cartel carrying the Javelins "smuggled from Ukraine."

"...US military weapons that we sent to *Ukraine*, including Javelin anti-tank missiles & missile launchers, are ending up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels south of our border. This is an embarrassment..." wrote Vivek Ramaswamy, a former biopharma entrepreneur who joined the Republican presidential primaries race earlier this year.

Ramaswamy linked to a FirstPost article, which among other sources referenced an "investigation" by RT, a Russian state-run propaganda network.

"A Mexican cartel member was just filmed with a US-made Javelin anti-tank missile/These were the missiles the US flooded into Ukraine in 2022," wrote Jack Posobiec, a conservative activist, in a tweet viewed more than one million times.

"Mexican TV reports that dozens of U.S. AT4 weapons systems, which were originally shipped to Ukraine, have been purchased by Cartel Golfo in Mexico," claimed the Citizens Free Press account on Twitter.

While some of the posts were flagged as misleading in Twitter's Community Notes, others did not have the label.

The claim was also shared on Reddit, Facebook and Russian-language Telegram channels, among other platforms, gathering millions of interactions over the past 24 hours.

But, as numerous experts and Community Notes pointed out, there are a number of misleading elements contained in these claims.

First, the missile launcher hanging on the shoulder of the man, who wears insignia of Los Escorpiones, the paramilitary wing of the Gulf Cartel in Northern Mexico, is not an FGM-148 Javelin, but another type of portable missile launcher—likely either the Swedish-designed AT4 unguided anti-armor weapon, or its U.S.-made variant, the M136 AT4.

"This is an unguided AT4, NOT a Javelin," wrote, in part, Swedish researcher and analyst Hugo Kaaman.

"That photo is NOT a Javelin Missile there, sooper solider. it's an AT4 rocket stolen from Mexican army/Marine stock but if you had been man enough to serve in the armed forces you might know that," wrote Malcolm Nance, a national security and intelligence analyst who quit his MSNBC commentator role to join Ukraine's foreign legion and fight Russia in 2022.

"The Javelin missile is on the Left, the AT4 rocket is on the right and @MikeASperrazza below both photos made a mistake in weapons identification," tweeted Trent Telenko, another expert, in reference to a since-deleted tweet featuring the same images.

Samuel Bendett, an adjunct senior fellow and adviser at the Center for a New American Security, told Newsweek that he believed the weapon was an AT4, but did not specify the type or model.

The weapon in the footage most closely resembles the M136 AT4, which is U.S. license-built copy of the AT4, with a few modifications to the original design, according to Military Today, including "hard rubber shock absorbers on the muzzle and venturi."

While the Javelin, the AT4 and the M136 AT4 may be similar in appearance, there are several distinct design variations, including Javelins being larger and heavier, with a thick rear seal and end cap. The M136 AT4, on the other hand, has a flatter and thinner muzzle cover, and a cone-shaped venturi at the rear, whose purpose is to dissipate the back blast when the weapon is fired.

Both of these elements are clearly visible on the launcher shown in the screenshotted video, as is a yellow band near the muzzle. Some have speculated that the yellow color signifies that the weapon is actually a dummy, though experts contacted by Newsweek could not immediately corroborate this detail (with certain online resources suggesting that a black and yellow band could in fact indicate high explosives).

Notably, the AT4s are valued at around $5,500 a shot (and only about $1,500 per unit, according to some sources). That is a mere fraction of the cost of the Javelins, which are manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, and are priced starting at $175,000, according to the Pentagon's 2021 budget.

The AT4 is widely used by Latin American militaries, including Argentina, Chile and Brazil (as well as by FARC insurgents in Colombia), and is "especially prized on the black market," according to a Small Arms Survey report in 2009.

Which leads us to the second misleading aspect of the narrative promoted by Ramaswamy and others: there is no tangible evidence to suggest the launcher (not least "dozens" of them) came from Ukraine, nor is such a claim made in the original Spanish-language reporting.

"The weapon, which is only sold to armies and has been widely used during the invasion of Ukraine, was in the hands of a hitman from Los Escorpiones, a cell of the Gulf cartel, which operates in Reynosa," the report said, as translated from Spanish. It also noted that the U.S. found evidence of private citizens acquiring these weapons for criminal gangs in 2020, and traced the smuggling operation to a Honduran politician.

The fact that Ukraine has lost access to most of its ports, which are now occupied by Russia, further undermines the claim. Both the U.S. and Sweden have confirmed to have sent AT4s to Ukraine through the course of the war, but there is no evidence that these packages were the source of smuggled weapons seen in the news reports, which have emerged during and prior to the Ukraine war.

Newsweek has previously debunked similar claims purporting to show Western weapons being smuggled from Ukraine, including a staged video of a supposed "black market" deal, and false narratives about U.S. aid, some of which have been peddled by the GOP's Freedom Caucus.

While arms trade experts and think tanks have warned in the past that at least some of the Western military aid may end up in other countries or conflict zones, both Ukraine and the Pentagon have repeatedly refuted such claims and insisted that there are rigorous safeguards in place to prevent such incidents.

Newsweek reached out to Ramaswamy and Ukraine's Defense Ministry for comment via email. The Pentagon declined to comment for the article.