Thread: DEA, ICE and U.S. Marshals arrest 200 nationwide

DEA, ICE and U.S. Marshals conducting operations in El Paso as authorities arrest 200 nationwide

By Alicia A. Caldwell / Associated Press
Posted: 02/24/2011 04:17:08 PM MST

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal, state and local authorities across the country are sending an unequivocal message to Mexican drug cartel members in the U.S. and Latin America: If you kill a U.S. agent, there will be repercussions.

In El Paso, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals were conducting operations. Officials did not offer further information.

"This is personal," Louie Garcia, deputy special agent with ICE, said Thursday as authorities arrested more than 200 people in a nationwide sweep. "We lost an agent, we lost a good agent. And we have to respond."

The massive search for people connected to any Mexican drug cartel working in the United States began Wednesday night as a direct response to the Feb. 15 killing of ICE agent Jaime Zapata in a roadside ambush in Mexico. Fellow ICE agent Victor Avila of El Paso was wounded in the attack.

As part of the effort coordinated by the Drug Enforcement Administration and ICE, authorities seized at least $8 million in cash and confiscated millions of dollars' worth of illegal drugs. Authorities in Brazil, El Salvador, Panama, Colombia and Mexico conducted similar sweeps in concert with U.S. authorities.

By Thursday afternoon police and federal agents around the U.S. had seized dozens of weapons in addition to drugs and cash. The sweep was expected to continue through Friday.

In the Newark, N.J., area, authorities on Wednesday arrested at least one person with ties to Mexico's ruthless Zetas drug gang - the same gang believed responsible for the deadly attack on Zapata and Avila - and seized about $1 million they believe was bound for cartel bosses in Mexico. Former Mexican special forces soldiers are among the Zetas' members
During a traffic stop north of Los Angeles late Wednesday police arrested one man and seized $2 million in cash along with 86 kilos of cocaine, drugs worth millions of dollars on the street.

In operations in South Texas on Thursday, authorities recovered hand grenades, assault rifles and bulletproof vests.

An officer involved in a raid in Houston was shot and wounded Thursday, though the injury was not life-threatening. The shooting occurred during a raid by agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Houston police. The suspected gunman was also shot and wounded and was in custody, police said.

Nationwide roundups of suspected cartel associates are nothing new. More than half a dozen such sweeps have been touted as blows to major Mexican drug gangs in the last 2 1/2 years. But an Associated Press review of those operations showed the arrests have done little to slow the drug trade.

Zapata was killed and Avila was wounded in Mexico on Feb. 15 when the Chevy Suburban they were in was run off the road by at least two vehicles loaded with armed men. Authorities have said the agents, who were driving in a fortified vehicle with diplomatic license plates, identified themselves as U.S. diplomats in the moments before the shooting.

Mexican authorities have arrested one person in connection with the brazen attack.

"We are basically going out to disrupt narcotics distribution here in the United States no matter what cartel their allegiance is to," said Carl Pike, assistant special agent in charge of the DEA's special operations division. "It would be futile to send a message back to one cartel when they all are just as guilty."

Pike said that while the sweeps are a direct response to Zapata's killing, the majority of suspects were already targets of other investigations.

"People actually sacrificed a great deal of work" for these sweeps, Pike said. "For the lost agent's memory it's important, but we're also in a bully situation. If we don't push back, some other 18-year-old cartel member is going to think, 'They didn't do anything, so all U.S. citizens are fair game.'"

Derek Maltz, DEA's special operations division special agent in charge, said that cartel members should never sleep easy.

"Look to your left, look to your right, look behind you. If you are sleeping in your bed, you better be aware that we are tracking you," Maltz said.

Zapata's killing is the most high-profile attack on U.S. authorities working in Mexico since the 1985 kidnapping and killing of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena. Last year, an employee at the U.S. consulate and her husband, a Texas jail guard, were killed on their way back to El Paso, Texas, from a birthday party in neighboring Ciudad Juarez.

Mexican law enforcement and politicians have become routine targets of Mexico's warring drug cartels, but for the most part, U.S. authorities had largely been avoided.

Pike said the reaction to the Camarena killing - U.S. authorities shut down the border and launched a manhunt for the agent's assailants - sent a compelling message to the cartels. But in the ensuing quarter century, memories have faded and a younger generation has taken up leadership roles in the drug gangs.

"These kids - cartel members - weren't even alive," Pike said.

More than 35,000 people have been killed since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown against drug gangs in December 2006.

Mexican authorities are leading the investigation of Zapata's death and the Justice Department has announced a joint task force, led by the FBI, with the Homeland Security Department.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_17473597

Why does it take a death in their own ranks to motivate the FEDs to take action? An individual who is a FED agent is more important than the average American citizen.

Federal, state and local authorities across the country are sending an unequivocal message to Mexican drug cartel members in the U.S. and Latin America: If you kill a U.S. agent, there will be repercussions.

Why can't they send a message: Kill any American and you will pay?

Those cartel members really stirred up a hornets nets this time.

Authorities in Brazil, El Salvador, Panama, Colombia and Mexico conducted similar sweeps in concert with U.S. authorities.

Originally Posted by jonhaloi

Why does it take a death in their own ranks to motivate the FEDs to take action? An individual who is a FED agent is more important than the average American citizen . . . Why can't they send a message: Kill any American and you will pay?

This isn't just about the agent's murder.
They have arrested more than 700 people during the 21 month investigation.
They just amped it up this week to make a point.

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that authorities had arrested more than 730 people across the country in a 21-month investigation targeting Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel and its infiltration into U.S. cities.

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-229255.html

Drug Raids Across U.S. Net Hundreds of Suspects

By GINGER THOMPSON
Published: February 24, 2011

WASHINGTON — A little more than a week after an American law enforcement agent was shot to death by gunmen suspected of being drug traffickers in Mexico, federal authorities struck back Thursday with raids across the United States that rounded up more than 450 people believed to have ties to criminal organizations south of the border.

The authorities said sweeps were conducted in nearly every major American city; involved more than 3,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agents; and resulted in the seizure of an estimated 300 kilograms of cocaine, 150,000 pounds of marijuana and 190 weapons. Derek Maltz, a special agent at the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the sweeps were part of a multinational investigation that could lead to more arrests and seizures in the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.

Mr. Maltz said that the message the authorities hoped to send with the sweeps was as important as the suspects being brought in. The operation came eight days after Jaime Zapata, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, was gunned down on a Mexican highway. Mr. Maltz said the planning for the operation had begun before Mr. Zapata’s shooting, but he acknowledged that the United States hoped to show it would not tolerate attacks against its agents.

Louie Garcia, a deputy special immigration and customs agent involved with the sweeps, echoed that thought in an interview with The Associated Press. “This is personal,â€