The new favorite weapon of the drug cartels has arrived in America -- and it will shock you

Mexican drug cartels are utilizing a deadly military weapon to keep local residents in terror and protect drug stockpiles.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Authorities on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border say that the cartels are using the grenades. Four live grenades were found in a rural home near the Texas' Rio Grande City earlier this month, the same town where three Hondurans were found murdered.

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"I can't even remember the last time we saw a grenade at a crime scene," said Starr County Sheriff's Captain Carlos Delgado.

In the Texas border town of San Juan, the ATF began to help local police in 2009 after sting operations resulted in the arrest of a man who had sold 200 grenades to an undercover federal agent who was posing as a member of a drug cartel.

"The reason you're seeing so many more (grenades) this year is because much more heavily armed drug shipments are coming into the United States," said James Phelps, an assistant professor of security at Angelo State University in Texas.

These grenades are sometimes built in Mexico, and sometimes cartel members purchase them in bulk from Central American countries that have been or currently are plagued by civil war.

The grenades are also used to intimidate and threaten residents, forcing them to remain quiet about narcotics shipments, human trafficking and other crimes that are blatantly committed in parts of rural and lawless Mexico.

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