News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 02, 2011
Contact: Special Agent Tony Pettigrew
Number: 617-557-2138

Twenty Alleged Members and Associates of Colombia’s Largest Drug
Cartel Charged

Two Kilograms of heroin seized during the Operation Fire and Ice arrests in Boston.

JUN 02 – (BOSTON, Mass.) -- Steven W. Derr, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration - Boston Field Division; United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; William P. Offord, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation in Boston; and Colonel Marian McGovern, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police announced today that as the result of an international money laundering and drug conspiracy investigation which began in East Boston nearly five years ago, federal law enforcement authorities today unsealed a 16-count indictment, charging 20 individuals and seizing 48 bank accounts across the United States.

According to documents filed in United States District Court in Boston, over the past four years the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Boston Field Division, along with the DEA’s Bogotá, Guatemala, Mexico, Curaçao, and Rome, Italy offices, have investigated the narcotics and money laundering trafficking conglomerate identified as “La Oficina de Envigado,â€