Interim Review of ATF’s Project Gunrunner, Evaluation and Inspections Report I-2009-006, September 2009: “Mexican drug trafficking organizations (cartels) are a pervasive organized crime threat to the United States, according to the Department of Justice’s 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment. The cartels use firearms trafficked from the United States – primarily from the Southwest border states of Texas, California, Arizona, and to a lesser extent, New Mexico – in their lucrative drug trafficking operations. Project Gunrunner is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) national initiative to reduce firearms trafficking to Mexico and associated violence along the Southwest border.”