Feds arrest 11, seize drugs, guns in raid
By DANE SCHILLER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Oct. 26, 2009, 10:09PM


U.S. authorities Monday announced the arrest of 11 people who are alleged members of a drug and weapons trafficking ring that was based in Houston and supplied numerous arms to the notorious Zeta faction of Mexico's Gulf Cartel as well as other criminals.

The organization worked out of what appeared to be a well-stocked yet covert operations center in a far northwest Houston-area home, on Magnolia Crest Place, according to a document filed in court by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Its existence underlines the connections between the Houston area and Mexican criminal syndicates, which pump illegal narcotics north and guns and cash profits back south to further their enterprises.

As agents and officers swept through the home back in December when the case quietly unfolded, they heard an authentic police radio on which a Harris County Sheriff's Office dispatcher was calling deputies to the residence.

Beside the radio was “what appeared to be part of an application for a wiretapâ€