Thread: US Police Bust Mexican Drug Gang, Arrest 39

US Police Bust Mexican Drug Gang, Arrest 39
By VOA News
24 December 2008


U.S. authorities say they have arrested dozens of suspects and broken up a smuggling network that has hauled up to 200 tons of marijuana to the southwestern state of Arizona each year from Mexico since 2003.

The Arizona attorney general's office issued a statement Tuesday, saying 39 people were arrested on felony charges, and nearly 60 people indicted following the investigation. Officials say the network in question, the Garibaldi-Lopez drug trafficking organization, transported drug loads to Phoenix, Arizona, across the remote desert wastes of the Tohono O'Odham Indian reservation, for Mexico's top Sinaloa cartel.

It says the network moved marijuana worth about one billion dollars through Phoenix for redistribution across the United States, and it used so-called "scouts" in the desert to look out for U.S. law enforcement during the smuggling operation.

Authorities say the operation also led to the seizure of cocaine, methamphetamine, thousands of dollars in U.S. currency, vehicles - some of them stolen - and firearms.

Separately, Mexican authorities say a beauty queen from the drug-plagued Sinaloa state has been arrested after she was found riding with suspected traffickers in a truck full of weapons.

Officials say 23-year-old Laura Zuniga was detained late Monday, along with seven men, at a military checkpoint near the city of Guadalajara, in the western state of Jalisco. Officials also say no one expected Zuniga to be in the truck, which they say contained cellphones, cash, pistols, rifles and bullets.

In July, Zuniga won the title of Miss Sinaloa, the northwestern Mexican state where drug lords fight over smuggling routes to the United States.

Zuniga was named "Queen of Hispanic America 2008" in a recent contest, and was to compete in the Miss International 2009 pageant next year.

Earlier this month, Mexico's top prosecutor, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, said drug gang-related killings have more than doubled since last year, despite President Felipe Calderon's efforts to crack down on the gangs. He said the official death toll for drug violence in the nation is close to five-thousand-400, a 117 percent increase over last year's total.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-12-24-voa7.cfm

Goddard might consider legalized marijuana
December 23, 2008
Comments 7| Recommend 1
Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services


Attorney General Terry Goddard said Tuesday he might be willing to consider legalizing marijuana if a way can be found to control its distribution - and figure out who has been smoking it.

Goddard said marijuana sales make up 75 percent of the money that Mexican cartels use for other operations, including smuggling other drugs and fighting the Mexican army and police.

He said that makes fighting drug distribution here important to cut off that cash. He acknowledged those profits could be slashed if possession of marijuana were not a crime in Arizona.

But Goddard said a number of other hurdles remain before that even becomes a possibility.

Goddard's comments came following a press conference Tuesday announcing the breakup of a major ring that police said has been responsible for bringing about 400,000 pounds of marijuana into Arizona each year since 2003.

The operation has led to the indictment of 59 people and the arrests of 39 of them, some in this country legally and others who were not.

Phoenix police Lt. Vince Piano said the operation was very sophisticated, complete with specially designed heavy-duty trucks to actually let vehicles drive over the border fence.

He said this operation was one of several under contract to Mexican drug lords to transport the marijuana from the border through the Tohono O'odham Reservation all the way to Phoenix. Piano said busting this organization doesn't stop the flow of drugs, as this is one of several "transportation groups" working with the cartel. But he said it does disrupt at least part of the flow.

Arizona drug laws came up during questions about the operation of drug cartels and the violence associated with their operations, particularly in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

"The key is, they will no longer exist when people don't buy marijuana," said Matthew Allen, special agent in charge of the office of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "This is a market-driven economy and this is a market-driven activity."

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/133027

Posted earlier at 2:23 p.m. at:

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-141301.html

Related earlier post we both missed:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-141298.html