There’s a lot of big guns heading across the border from the United States to Mexico, where ongoing cartel wars are leaving piles of bodies in blood-soaked border towns.

Last week, deputies with the Refugio County Sheriff’s Office intercepted a single shipment that offered an eye-opening look at the firepower heading south and the criminals facilitating the lucrative trade.

The Victoria Advocate reports:

Wednesday, a Refugio County deputy discovered a cache of 32 guns, including 15 AK-47s, 12 AR-15s, three .50-caliber sniper rifles and at least one pistol, as well as 600 magazines in possession of a Nicaraguan man who was not a U.S. citizen during a traffic stop on U.S. 77 north of Refugio. The guns are thought to be headed to Mexico or farther south where they would be smuggled, (Refugio County Sheriff Raul) Gonzalez said.

The sheriff’s office posted images of the weapons to Facebook to highlight the seemingly growing problem, one of several created by the country’s porous southern border in Texas and elsewhere.

“Refugio County Sheriff’s Office continues to battle organized criminal activity, drug trafficking, and human smuggling,” the post read. “These criminal enterprises threaten the safety and security of all Refugio County residents, all Texas, all Americans, and humankind.”

Gonzalez told KAVU there seems to be more gun-running going on lately, though it could be the product of improved cooperation between law enforcement agencies in the area.

“These weapons we believe they are going to the cartels, south of the border,” he said. “And here lately, we have been seizing some weapons so, I’m not saying it has increased, because a lot of them get by and we miss them, but here lately we have been seizing a lot of weapons.”

The suspect arrested in last week’s bust has not been identified, but is expected to face charges for gun smuggling and marijuana possession, in addition to the potential for federal charges, Gonzalez told the Advance.

The sheriff said the deputy who made the arrest “knew what to look for” because of information shared in collaboration with the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area and Crossroads Area Task Force.

The task force works within the federally designated trafficking area to bring together local, state and federal authorities to coordinate law enforcement activities. The group is now working to trace the weapons recovered last week to determine how the bad guys managed to stockpile the shipment heading south.

“Our task force is going to be involved in this investigation,” Gonzalez said. “They are going to find out where these guns were bought. Who bought them. Where they were going. And they are going to pass this intel onto the other counties that they work with.”

The Nicaraguan man arrested with the cache remains in Refugio County Jail as authorities track down other suspects believed to be involved in the operation, he said.