NEW YORK, June 23 /PRNewswire/ --

- Heavy caliber weapons add to rising death toll

Mexico's drug cartels have turned increasingly violent as they fight back against President Felipe Calderon's efforts to regain the upper hand in the country's drug war. An analysis in the current issue of FLYP, a new online multimedia magazine that can be accessed at www.flypmedia.com, demonstrates the dramatic increase in the cartel's firepower. Almost all of the weapons are bought in the U.S. and smuggled across the border.

"The cartels are arming themselves with .50-caliber sniper rifles, rocket launchers, fragmentation and gas grenades, and a wide range of assault weapons," said Matthew Schaeffer, who wrote "Guns Without Borders." "We documented Mexican government seizures this year alone of 900 heavy weapons, 270 handguns and 330 grenades -- and everyone acknowledges this only scratches the surface of the cartels' arsenals," he continued.

FLYP provides a multimedia look at those arsenals, how the guns get from places like Texas and California into Mexico, and at the efforts to stop them.

FLYP is an online, multimedia magazine experience at www.flypmedia.com, is produced by New York based Digital Media International.

Web site: http://www.flypmedia.com

Alayna Tetreault-Roooney, FLYP, alaynatr@flypmedi.com, +1-212-689-9560