Chronicle Journal - Stories -

Opinion Poll
With a transit strike looming in Thunder Bay, what‘s your take on possible job action:
	It would be disruptive
	I’ll get by with other means
	I don’t use transit
	I hope there’s no stoppage

More Links	tbayjobline	TbayWeddings	Play Games!	^New! eVents Calendar	Advertise with Us	Contact Us

Other Links	Movie Times	Airport	Bus Schedule	Road Conditions	Library	Weather	Facebook	Twitter

Largest US sting on Mexican drug operations nabs 300-plus, shows wide scope of drug trade
By Elliot Spagat,Sean Murphy, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, October 23, 2009

Email this article
Printer friendly page

Weapons and drugs seized in special joint operation conducted with the DEA against the La Familia drug cartel based out of Michoacan, Mexico and operating in San Bernardino and surrounding counties, are on display at a news conference at Sheriff’s headquarters in San Bernardino, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009. This cartel has been responsible for numerous violent attacks on Mexican police officers and their families as well as other Mexican citizens, authorities say. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Reed Saxon)

OKLAHOMA CITY - In the largest single strike at Mexican drug operations in the U.S., authorities arrested more than 300 people in a sting that demonstrates an upstart cartel’s vast reach north of the border.

The tentacles of "La Familia" extend coast to coast and deep into America’s heartland, with arrests announced Thursday in 38 cities from Boston to Seattle and from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Drug deals went down in Oklahoma parking lots, suppliers were advised to weld drugs into tire rims for transport, and in the Dallas and Seattle areas, dozens of children were removed from houses where authorities found drugs, guns or cash derived from drug sales.

Perhaps more than any other cartel, La Familia projects a Robin Hood image. The Drug Enforcement Administration said the group is "philosophically opposed to the sale of methamphetamine to Mexicans, and instead supports its export to the United States for consumption by Americans."

Mexican police say the gang uses religion and family morals to recruit. The gang has hung banners in towns saying they do not tolerate drug use, or attacks on women or children.

One of the gang’s alleged recruiters, detained last spring, ran drug rehabilitation centres, helping addicts to recover and then forcing them to work for the drug gang or be killed, according to Mexico Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna.

La Familia is rarely mentioned in the same breath as the handful of other Mexican gangs that control the flow of drugs into the United States, fueled by Colombian cocaine suppliers. The Sinaloa, Juarez, Gulf and Tijuana cartels have roots that go back many years, even decades.

But in its short history, La Familia is believed to have emerged as the biggest supplier of methamphetamine to the United States and, increasingly, a peddler of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs.

Complaints that were unsealed across the country portray an organization that spread deep into Middle America, down to small-time sales.

In Colorado, authorities seized 8 kilograms of cocaine, 3 pounds (1 1/2 kilograms) of methamphetamine and $313,785.

A federal grand jury has indicted 11 members or associates of La Familia from the Western Slope in Colorado, and six of them have been arrested so far, prosecutors said.

In Oklahoma, authorities seized about 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of methamphetamine, 2 pounds (nearly a kilogram) of cocaine, six weapons and several thousand dollars. They identified Ruben Garcia, 29, as a major supplier in the northeast part of the state.

Agents spotted Garcia and his partners dealing drugs over several months at restaurants, grocery stores and Wal-Mart parking lots in the Tulsa area, according to court documents. In one tapped phone call Oct. 9, Garcia counselled a supplier in Mexico who helped arrange a shipment in McAllen, Texas, that the easiest way to smuggle drugs is welded inside tire rims of vehicles.

Court records do not list an attorney for Garcia.

In North Carolina, targeted cells operated from the Raleigh area to the eastern cities of Rocky Mount and Greenville, a region with a large Hispanic population to help the targets blend in and quick access to three interstate highways. They made four arrests Wednesday but totalled 49 arrests over the past year.

In Nashville, after more than a year of surveillance, agents converged on a home when two people arrived in a car from Atlanta Aug. 14, according to a complaint. A search of the vehicle discovered hidden compartments that "contained nine similarly wrapped packages, each of which were the size of a kilogram of cocaine." One package tested positive for cocaine.

Inside the home, agents found drug ledgers, a money counter and a loaded pistol. At another home, they found about 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of marijuana, several loaded handguns and two bulletproof vests.

Texas Child Protective Services removed 20 children from houses in the Dallas area when authorities executed 44 search warrants, said James Capra, the DEA’s special agent in charge in Dallas. All the homes where children were found had drugs, guns or cash derived from drug sales.

La Familia is known as unusually violent, even by Mexico’s standards.

After the arrest of one of its leaders in July in Mexico, the cartel launched an offensive against federal forces, killing 18 police officers and two soldiers over a weekend. In the worst attack, 12 federal agents were slain and their tortured bodies piled along a roadside as a warning for all to see.

"They are one of the most violent, if not the most violent, cartel in Mexico right now," said Michael Braun, who retired as the DEA’s chief of operations last year.

La Familia operates methamphetamine "superlabs" in Mexico that produce up to 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of the drug in eight hours, a sharp contrast to small-time labs in the United States that have supplied American addicts, said Braun.

The organization was founded around 2004 and really took off in 2006, Braun said.

The arrests in places such as Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles suggest that its U.S. distribution network is sophisticated, said Scott Stewart, an analyst at the Stratfor consultancy in Austin, Texas, who follows the Mexican drug trade.

"Those are beautiful interstate (highway) hubs," Stewart said. "It’s looking they have ramped up very quickly."

-

Associated Press writers Mike Baker in Raleigh, North Carolina, Julie Watson in Mexico City, Rochelle Hines in Oklahoma City, Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, Tim Klass in Seattle, Danny Robbins in Dallas and Gillian Flaccus in San Bernardino, California, contributed to this report. Spagat reported from San Diego.

Top of Page

Games!
Canadian Crossword
PlayFour!
Word Roundup