Task force probe leads to drug-related arrests of 10


By Angelica Martinez
UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM

3:54 p.m. June 1, 2006



ANGELICA MARTINEZ / Union-Tribune
Items seized during raids Thursday on a cross-border drug-trafficking ring are displayed by authorities. Ten people were arrested.
CHULA VISTA – A task force's eight-month investigation led to raids around San Diego County Thursday in which 10 people were arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking on both sides of the border, officials said.
Some 80 to 100 law enforcement officers served nine search warrants simultaneously in an investigation that initially focused on the trafficking of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine from Mexico, said Frank Marwood, acting special agent in charge of the local Immigration Customs Enforcement office.

The raids were conducted in National City, Lemon Grove, Bonita, Chula Vista, the San Ysidro neighborhood of San Diego, Imperial Beach and Spring Valley.

Seized were:

About $35,000 in cash, mostly in $100 bills, along with some Mexican currency

Small amounts of cocaine and crystal meth, and marijuana packaged in about three dozen bricks and in canisters.

Three semiautomatic rifles – an AR-15, an AK-47 and an SKS carbine – and several handguns and ammunition

A 2006 BMW 325i and a 2004 Nissan Pathfinder Armada LE.

The 10 arrests made Thursday were in addition to seven arrests made during the past eight months, authorities said. Two or three other people were still being sought.

Some of those arrested are Mexican nationals who do not have legal residency in the United States and face deportation, Marwood said.

Operation Alliance, a task force of local, state and federal law enforcement authorities, began the investigation after learning that a local person was trafficking in cocaine, Marwood said.

They soon found that several other people were involved, and that the drug traffickers they were after were involved in other serious crimes.

“It was an extremely violent organization,” Marwood said.

Two of those arrested had been arrested before in homicide investigations, and three of the others were the targets of kidnappings or homicides by people within the organization, Marwood said.

“Luckily, I can report that there is no indication that those planning sessions ever came to fruition because, of course, we were highly concerned for the safety of those individuals even though they were indeed part of the organization themselves,” he said.

The members of the organization are also suspected of stealing luxury vehicles and taking them to Mexico, where their identification numbers were changed before the vehicles were registered in Mexico, officials said.

Authorities also suspect the group of stealing credit card numbers and using them to make purchases in Mexico.

Marwood said the drug ring was known to have connections to three local gangs and the Mexican Mafia.



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Angelica Martinez: (619) 293-1317; angelica.martinez@uniontrib.com









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