Cartels dispatch agents deep inside US
April 01, 2013 07:20 PM
Associated Press
In this Dec. 11, 2012 file photo, Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Chicago, points out local Mexican drug cartel problem areas on a map in the new interagency Strike Force office in Chicago.
Looking on is DEA agent Vince Balbo. The ruthless syndicates have long been the nation's No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, but in the past, their operatives rarely ventured beyond the border. A wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcemen In this Dec. 11, 2012 file photo, Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Chicago, points out local Mexican drug cartel problem areas on a map in the new interagency Strike Force office in Chicago.
Looking on is DEA agent Vince Balbo. The ruthless syndicates have long been the nation's No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, but in the past, their operatives rarely ventured beyond the border. A wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcemen
A+ A-
CHICAGO: Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond
the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live
and work deep inside the United States - an emboldened presence that experts
believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world's most lucrative
narcotics market and maximize profits.
If left unchecked, authorities say, the cartels' move into the American
interior could render the syndicates harder than ever to dislodge and pave
the way for them to expand into other criminal enterprises such as
prostitution, kidnapping-and-extortion rackets and money laundering.
Cartel activity in the U.S. is certainly not new. Starting in the 1990s, the
ruthless syndicates became the nation's No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs,
using unaffiliated middlemen to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and heroin beyond
the border or even to grow pot here.
But a wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and
government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law
enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from
their inner circles to the U.S. Cartel operatives are suspected of running
drug-distribution networks in at least nine non-border states, often in
middle-class suburbs in the Midwest, South and Northeast.
"It's probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from
organized crime," said Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's Chicago office.
The cartel threat looms so large that one of Mexico's most notorious drug
kingpins - a man who has never set foot in Chicago - was recently named the
city's Public Enemy No. 1, the same notorious label once assigned to Al
Capone.
The Chicago Crime Commission, a non-government agency that tracks crime
trends in the region, said it considers Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman even more
menacing than Capone because Guzman leads the deadly Sinaloa cartel, which
supplies most of the narcotics sold in Chicago and in many cities across the
U.S.
Years ago, Mexico faced the same problem - of then-nascent cartels expanding
their power - "and didn't nip the problem in the bud," said Jack Killorin,
head of an anti-trafficking program in Atlanta for the Office of National
Drug Control Policy. "And see where they are now."
Riley sounds a similar alarm: "People think, 'The border's 1,700 miles away.
This isn't our problem.' Well, it is. These days, we operate as if Chicago
is on the border."
Border states from Texas to California have long grappled with a cartel
presence. But cases involving cartel members have now emerged in the suburbs
of Chicago and Atlanta, as well as Columbus, Ohio, Louisville, Ky., and
rural North Carolina. Suspects have also surfaced in Indiana, Michigan,
Minnesota and Pennsylvania.
Mexican drug cartels "are taking over our neighborhoods," Pennsylvania
Attorney General Kathleen Kane warned a legislative committee in February.
State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan disputed her claim, saying cartels
are primarily drug suppliers, not the ones trafficking drugs on the ground.
For years, cartels were more inclined to make deals in Mexico with American
traffickers, who would then handle transportation to and distribution within
major cities, said Art Bilek, a former organized crime investigator who is
now executive vice president of the crime commission.
As their organizations grew more sophisticated, the cartels began scheming
to keep more profits for themselves. So leaders sought to cut out middlemen
and assume more direct control, pushing aside American traffickers, he said.
Beginning two or three years ago, authorities noticed that cartels were
putting "deputies on the ground here," Bilek said. "Chicago became such a
massive market ... it was critical that they had firm control."
To help fight the syndicates, Chicago recently opened a first-of-its-kind
facility at a secret location where 70 federal agents work side-by-side with
police and prosecutors. Their primary focus is the point of contact between
suburban-based cartel operatives and city street gangs who act as retail
salesmen. That is when both sides are most vulnerable to detection, when
they are most likely to meet in the open or use cellphones that can be
wiretapped.
Others are skeptical about claims cartels are expanding their presence,
saying law-enforcement agencies are prone to exaggerating threats to justify
bigger budgets.
David Shirk, of the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute, said
there is a dearth of reliable intelligence that cartels are dispatching
operatives from Mexico on a large scale.
"We know astonishingly little about the structure and dynamics of cartels
north of the border," Shirk said. "We need to be very cautious about the
assumptions we make."
Statistics from the DEA suggest a heightened cartel presence in more U.S.
cities. In 2008, around 230 American communities reported some level of
cartel presence. That number climbed to more than 1,200 in 2011, the most
recent year for which information is available, though the increase is
partly due to better reporting.
Dozens of federal agents and local police interviewed by the AP said they
have identified cartel members or operatives using wiretapped conversations,
informants or confessions. Hundreds of court documents reviewed by the AP
appear to support those statements.
"This is the first time we've been seeing it - cartels who have their
operatives actually sent here," said Richard Pearson, a lieutenant with the
Louisville Metropolitan Police Department, which arrested four alleged
operatives of the Zetas cartel in November in the suburb of Okolona.
People who live on the tree-lined street where authorities seized more than
2,400 pounds of marijuana and more than $1 million in cash were shocked to
learn their low-key neighbors were accused of working for one of Mexico's
most violent drug syndicates, Pearson said.
One of the best documented cases is Jose Gonzalez-Zavala, who was dispatched
to the U.S. by the La Familia cartel, according to court filings.
In 2008, the former taxi driver and father of five moved into a spacious
home at 1416 Brookfield Drive in a middle-class neighborhood of Joliet,
southwest of Chicago. From there, court papers indicate, he oversaw
wholesale shipments of cocaine in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana.
Wiretap transcripts reveal he called an unidentified cartel boss in Mexico
almost every day, displaying the deference any midlevel executive might show
to someone higher up the corporate ladder. Once he stammered as he explained
that one customer would not pay a debt until after a trip.
"No," snaps the boss. "What we need is for him to pay."
The same cartel assigned Jorge Guadalupe Ayala-German to guard a
Chicago-area stash house for $300 a week, plus a promised $35,000 lump-sum
payment once he returned to Mexico after a year or two, according to court
documents.
Ayala-German brought his wife and child to help give the house the
appearance of an ordinary family residence. But he was arrested before he
could return home and pleaded guilty to multiple trafficking charges. He
will be sentenced later this year.
Socorro Hernandez-Rodriguez was convicted in 2011 of heading a massive drug
operation in suburban Atlanta's Gwinnett County. The chief prosecutor said
he and his associates were high-ranking figures in the La Familia cartel -
an allegation defense lawyers denied.
And at the end of February outside Columbus, Ohio, authorities arrested
34-year-old Isaac Eli Perez Neri, who allegedly told investigators he was a
debt collector for the Sinaloa cartel.
An Atlanta attorney who has represented reputed cartel members says
authorities sometimes overstate the threat such men pose.
"Often, you have a kid whose first time leaving Mexico is sleeping on a
mattress at a stash house playing Game Boy, eating Burger King, just
checking drugs or money in and out," said Bruce Harvey. "Then he's arrested
and gets a gargantuan sentence. It's sad."
Typically, cartel operatives are not U.S. citizens and make no attempt to
acquire visas, choosing instead to sneak across the border. They are so
accustomed to slipping back and forth between the two countries that they
regularly return home for family weddings and holidays, Riley said.
Because cartels accumulate houses full of cash, they run the constant risk
associates will skim off the top. That points to the main reason cartels
prefer their own people: Trust is hard to come by in their cutthroat world.
There's also a fear factor. Cartels can exert more control on their
operatives than on middlemen, often by threatening to torture or kill loved
ones back home.
Danny Porter, chief prosecutor in Gwinnett County, Ga., said he has tried to
entice dozens of suspected cartel members to cooperate with American
authorities. Nearly all declined. Some laughed in his face.
"They say, 'We are more scared of them (the cartels) than we are of you. We
talk and they'll boil our family in acid,'" Porter said. "Their families are
essentially hostages."
Citing the safety of his own family, Gonzalez-Zavala declined to cooperate
with authorities in exchange for years being shaved off his 40-year
sentence.
In other cases, cartel brass send their own family members to the U.S.
"They're sometimes married or related to people in the cartels," Porter
said. "They don't hire casual labor." So meticulous have cartels become that
some even have operatives fill out job applications before being dispatched
to the U.S., Riley added.
In Mexico, the cartels are known for a staggering number of killings - more
than 50,000, according to one tally. Beheadings are sometimes a signature.
So far, cartels don't appear to be directly responsible for large numbers of
slayings in the United States, though the Texas Department of Public Safety
reported 22 killings and five kidnappings in Texas at the hands of Mexican
cartels from 2010 through mid- 2011.
Still, police worry that increased cartel activity could fuel heightened
violence.
In Chicago, the police commander who oversees narcotics investigations,
James O'Grady, said street-gang disputes over turf account for most of the
city's uptick in murders last year, when slayings topped 500 for the first
time since 2008. Although the cartels aren't dictating the territorial wars,
they are the source of drugs.
Riley's assessment is stark: He argues that the cartels should be seen as an
underlying cause of Chicago's disturbingly high murder rate.
"They are the puppeteers," he said. "Maybe the shooter didn't know and maybe
the victim didn't know that. But if you follow it down the line, the cartels
are ultimately responsible."
Read more:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2013/Apr-01/212188-cartels-di
spatch-agents-deep-inside-us.ashx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#
ixzz2PESdtxu6
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
==========================================
(F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this
message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to
these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed
within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with
"Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.
The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The
Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain
permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials
if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting,
teaching, scholarship, and research." Section 107 establishes four criteria
for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies
as a "fair use". A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four
criteria to qualify as an instance of "fair use". Rather, "fair use" is
determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not
substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use
copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS
PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment