Salvadoran police say they have found a cache of more than 200 anti-tank grenades hidden in a rural carpenter's workshop, the BBC reported.

 

Authorities believe the weapons may be connected with the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas, which has been working to expand operations to El Salvador and other Central American countries.

 

Police reportedly become suspicious in early August after residents of El Congo, a village 30 miles north of San Salvador, reported seeing a group of heavily armed men force their way onto a local property.

Witnesses said the men, traveling in three vehicles with Guatemalan number plates, had been digging on the grounds.

 

Residents called police and the men fled.

 

Although recent searches of the property failed to turn up anything, Salvadoran security forces on Tuesday located the anti-tank grenades.

 

Neighbors reported that the property had belonged to a Guatemalan “military man.”

 

Los Zetas, Mexico's most violent drug trafficking gang, has a reputation for recruiting former members of the military in countries including Guatemala and the United States.

 

The New York Daily News reported last month that Los Zetas was one of a number of Mexican drug cartels who have been recruiting U.S. soldiers to act as hit men.

 

One such recruit was First Lt. Kevin Corley, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder after his arrest in Laredo, Tex. last year.

 

In March 2012, the Daily News reported, Corley sold AR-15 assault rifles to persons he thought were Los Zetas cartel members. He also agreed to collect stolen cocaine and murder a member of a rival cartel.