Thread: U.S. sweep said to cripple Mexico drug cartel

U.S. sweep said to cripple Mexico drug cartel
Wed Feb 25, 2009 9:15pm EST
By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. authorities capped a nearly two-year campaign against one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels with 52 arrests on Wednesday, and said they had crippled its U.S. distribution network.

The arrests in California, Maryland and Minnesota brought to 755 the total charged in the United States under "Operation XCellerator" that began in May 2007 and was aimed at Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, authorities said.

The cartel is a leading combatant in the violent battles in Mexico for control of Mexican trafficking operations.

The turf wars killed more than 6,000 people there last year and sparked fears of spillover violence in the United States, despite Mexican President Felipe Calderon sending thousands of troops to crush the gangs. Washington has also pledged $1.6 billion in military equipment and training assistance to Mexico over three years.

"They are a national-security threat," Attorney General Eric Holder said of the cartels. "They are lucrative. They are violent. And they are operated with stunning planning and precision."

The operation was the third major strike against Mexican cartels and the second against the Sinaloa group, officials said. "These cartels will be destroyed," Holder told a news conference.

The operation targeted some 70 U.S. distribution hubs and cells in 26 U.S. states, in cities ranging from Los Angeles to tiny Stow, Ohio, Michele Leonhart, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, told reporters. It began with the discovery of a cell in California's Imperial Valley, authorities said.

More than 12,000 kilograms (26,460 pounds) of cocaine were seized in total, along with 16,000 pounds of marijuana, 1,200 pounds of methamphetamine and 1.3 million Ecstasy pills.

Over roughly the same time, U.S. cocaine prices have more than doubled and purity has fallen by more than one-third -- both measures of cocaine scarcity, Leonhart said. Methamphetamine prices also have risen.

PROFITS TO BUY GUNS

She said distribution networks in Mexico and Canada were also crippled. "They've been hit hard," Leonhart said of the Sinaloa traffickers.

Suspects indicted in the operation faced charges of racketeering, drug smuggling, money laundering and illegal weapons possession, officials said.

But the cartel violence shows no signs of easing. The cartels are believed to use profits from U.S. drug sales to buy weapons in the United States and smuggle them to Mexico, where they increase the drug wars' lethality.

Holder said the Obama administration would push for renewing a U.S. ban on assault rifles, but the timing was uncertain. "I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum," he said.

The ban expired during the Bush administration under heavy pressure from U.S. gun-rights advocates, who pressed Holder on the issue during his confirmation hearings.

The Sinaloa cartel, based in the northwestern Mexican state of the same name, split in two rival groups last year. One faction is headed by Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, Mexico's most wanted criminal, and the other is led by his former enforcers, the Beltran Leyva brothers.

The drug war started around four years ago when Guzman tried to take over territory in northeastern Mexico belonging to the rival Gulf cartel. The Sinaloans were eventually expelled.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Bell, editing by Philip Barbara)

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNew ... dChannel=0

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. authorities capped a nearly two-year campaign against one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels with 52 arrests on Wednesday, and said they had crippled its U.S. distribution network."

One down, how many to go?

Do they really think putting a ban on legal assalt weapons is going to stop these criminals from buying them here? They'll just do it on the black market. The answer is to rid this country of anyone who is here illegally. Actually, all of this could work to our advantage. If, or when this government comes out of its coma and does something about this problem, they may just weed out some illegal aliens along with the drug cartel and gang members. And they will be forced to secure that border, with the military if necessary. Once the border is controlled, these criminals will have a harder time getting back in once they are deported. But, I can tell you one thing. Once the news of all this gets out there, the American people will insist on them cleaning up this mess.

Do they really think putting a ban on legal assalt weapons is going to stop these criminals from buying them here?

This administration wants to change gun laws, they are very anti-gun. And as we all know they love the illegals.

So 52 arrests have crippled all the drug cartels? I guess we are all idiots and should buy into this propaganda. Those 52 have already been replaced and 52 more are waiting to move up.

Originally Posted by bigtex

So 52 arrests have crippled all the drug cartels? I guess we are all idiots and should buy into this propaganda. Those 52 have already been replaced and 52 more are waiting to move up.

So true! They DO think we all idiots out here!!!

Mexican cartels' drugs, mayhem hit U.S. cities

50 held in country-wide raids aimed at stemming Sinaloa's bloody influence


WASHINGTON - Mexican drug cartels are shipping more than massive quantities of drugs north of the border. Increasingly, they're also exporting bloody mayhem.

Seeking to stem the growing influence of the Sinaloa cartel within the United States, federal agents arrested more than 50 suspects in raids Tuesday night and Wednesday morning at different ends of the country. The raids capped a 21-month operation by the Drug Enforcement Administration that rounded up 755 suspects and seized more than $59 million in criminal proceeds.

"These cartels will be destroyed," Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday at a press conference announcing the arrests.

The overnight roundup by DEA and state and local police included arrests in California, Minnesota and the Maryland suburbs of Washington.

Holder called the cartels a threat to national security, adding, "They are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision."

Use of U.S. assault weapons
The attorney general also suggested that re-instituting a U.S. ban on the sale of assault weapons would help reduce the bloodshed in Mexico, where last year 6,000 people were killed in drug-related violence.

Increasingly, U.S. law enforcement officials see cartel violence spill into the United States, often as far away as Phoenix and Atlanta.

As he discussed the problem, Holder spoke briefly in Spanish, pledging continued cooperation with Mexican authorities who have increasingly come under direct fire from the heavily armed drug gangs.

U.S. officials have a responsibility to make sure Mexican police "are not fighting substantial numbers of weapons, or fighting against AK-47s or other similar kinds of weapons that have been flowing to Mexico," Holder said.

DEA Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart said the raid showed the tentacles of the crime syndicate had spread far across the United States — not just to major cities like Washington and Los Angeles, but to quiet, smaller communities like Stowe, Iowa, which the cartel allegedly used as a conduit to funnel drugs around the country.





http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29389404/

Originally Posted by bigtex

So 52 arrests have crippled all the drug cartels? I guess we are all idiots and should buy into this propaganda. Those 52 have already been replaced and 52 more are waiting to move up.

Spot on bigtex! Mexico's economy is depends on drug sales and remittances from illegal aliens. The mexican government will never allow the drug trade or illegal alien trade to end. Their entire government is run on corruption. They just expect us to believe their lies.

Originally Posted by miguelina

Spot on bigtex! Mexico's economy is depends on drug sales and remittances from illegal aliens. The mexican government will never allow the drug trade or illegal alien trade to end. Their entire government is run on corruption. They just expect us to believe their lies.

Exactly, too many of them are on the drug cartell's payroll.

Originally Posted by April

Use of U.S. assault weapons
The attorney general also suggested that re-instituting a U.S. ban on the sale of assault weapons would help reduce the bloodshed in Mexico, where last year 6,000 people were killed in drug-related violence.

U.S. officials have a responsibility to make sure Mexican police "are not fighting substantial numbers of weapons, or fighting against AK-47s or other similar kinds of weapons that have been flowing to Mexico," Holder said.

Let me see, the last time I checked AK-47's were not U.S. Assault weapons. When I was in Vietnam the Chinese supplied them to the NVC. Every time I see a news story where weapons have been confiscated from drug cartels they have AK-47's. So are these really coming from the US or perhaps is this a flow of weapons coming from China? Or is this just and excuse by Obama's tool of an attorney general to ban assault weapons again in the US?

So are these really coming from the US or perhaps is this a flow of weapons coming from China? Or is this just and excuse by Obama's tool of an attorney general to ban assault weapons again in the US?

I believe it is all a part of his plan to ban weapons and I doubt he stops at assault.