Aurora man sent dozens of guns to Mexico, saying he was helping relatives protect themselves, feds say

An Aurora man is charged with illegally exporting at least 30 guns to Mexico where he says he was giving them to family members for their protection.

Camerino Campusano, 74, is accused of buying the guns at suburban gun stores and transporting them to Mexico. He crossed the U.S. border into Mexico at least 19 times since 2022, federal authorities said.

According to a bankruptcy filing in 2017, Campusano said he was unemployed but got monthly income from a rental property in Aurora. He doesn’t appear to have a criminal record except for some traffic citations.

On July 16, a compliance manager for GAT Guns in East Dundee notified an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that Campusano was trying to buy seven guns of the same make, model and caliber, which prompted the ATF to investigate.

The compliance manager was concerned Campusano might be a “straw purchaser,” someone who’s legally allowed to buy guns and provides them to criminals and other people who are disqualified from owning them, according to an affidavit an ATF agent filed in the case.

The ATF agent learned that Campusano had bought 43 guns from licensed firearm dealers between 2015 and 2024 and was making arrangements to buy another 11. Most of the weapons he bought were from JR Shooting Sports in Aurora and GAT Guns.

On July 24, Campusano allegedly told ATF agents he’d transported at least 30 guns to Mexico. According to the agents, he said he gave the guns to family members in Mexico: “They were forming a group because of the bad people that are over there and … they would be defending themselves."

Campusano said he provided guns to his kids and his cousins, according to the ATF. The agents seized four guns from Campusano’s home in Aurora. Then the Illinois State Police revoked his Firearm Owner’s Identification Card, which allows people to buy guns in Illinois after a background check. The state police found Campusano presents a “clear and present danger."

On Aug. 11 — more than a week after Campusano’s FOID card was revoked — a cousin of his was stopped while trying to cross the border in a bus in Laredo, Texas. Federal agents found 11 guns and 630 rounds of ammunition in his luggage, which the cousin said Campusano asked him to take to a friend in Irapuato, Mexico, as a favor in exchange for his bus ticket and food. The cousin told agents he didn’t know what was in the luggage.

Irapuato, a city of about 500,000 northwest of Mexico City, has been called one of the most dangerous places in Mexico with about 475 killings in 2018 alone. The city is located in what’s been characterized as the country’s most violent state, Guanajuanto, a car-manufacturing hub where two cartels, Jalisco New Generation and Santa Rosa de Lima, have been battling it out for years.

The United States is a major source state for guns in Mexico, authorities say. From 2017 to 2021, ATF investigated more than 1,000 cases involving illegal exports of firearms from the United States to Mexico, mostly from border states, according to a report the agency released this year. Over that period, Mexico became an increasingly large market for illegal U.S. guns, the report said.