Pubdate: Thu, 14 Dec 2000
Source: Beacon Journal, The (OH)
Copyright: 2000 The Beacon Journal Publishing Co.
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Author: MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN

DRUG AGENTS BREAK UP MEXICAN-LED COCAINE, MARIJUANA SMUGGLING RING

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. and foreign drug agents began arresting 105 people
Thursday in Columbus, Ohio, and many other cities in an attack on a
Mexican-led gang that smuggled tons of cocaine and marijuana into this
country. The United States offered a $2 million reward for the ring's brazen
kingpin and two henchmen.

Begun on October 1999, Operation Impunity II was the third major effort
launched by the Drug Enforcement Administration since 1997 against a gang
based in Reynosa and Matamoros, Mexico. The gang's violent leader, Osiel
Cardenas-Guillen, stitched together the remnants of two other gangs,
formerly led by Amado Carrillo-Fuentes and Juan Garcia Abrego, according to
a senior DEA official who requested anonymity.

Cardenas-Guillen has openly threatened U.S. agents and is known for purges
of his own organization, earning him the nickname ``the friend-killer'' in
Mexico, this official said.

DEA and FBI agents were arresting people in New York; Chicago; Columbus,
Ohio; Memphis, Tenn.; Louisville, Miss.; Houston, McAllen and Brownsville,
Texas. More than 50 had been arrested by midday.

Eight U.S. provisional arrest warrants were given to Mexican police who were
trying to arrest key figures there; another warrant was forwarded to the
Dominican Republic for their police to arrest a Dominican national.

The State Department offered a $2 million reward for the capture of
Cardenas-Guillen and two deputies, Adan Medrano and Juan Manual
Garza-Rendon, in case they eluded Thursday's dragnet in Mexico.

Prior to Thursday's raid, Operation Impunity II had made 82 arrests and
seized $10.8 million in cash, 9,000 pounds of marijuana and 5,266 kilograms
of cocaine, officials said. Overall, the three operations had produced 248
arrests and seized $36 million, 25,000 pounds of marijuana and 21,000
kilograms of cocaine from 1997 through Wednesday.

``The rules of evidence force us to periodically take down parts of this
operation, but the three operations show we're not stopping. We keep hitting
them,'' said Joe Keefe, DEA chief of operations. ``We've affected them, and
forced them into new alliances to keep functioning.''

Keefe said the investigation was continuing in other Midwest and Western
cities.

``The success of Operation Impunity II -- as well as the earlier successes
of Operation Limelight and Operation Impunity I -- was largely the result of
the outstanding coordination between federal, state and local law
enforcement officials and prosecutors across the country,'' Attorney General
Janet Reno said.

The gang smuggled cocaine from Colombia into the United States hidden under
tractor trailer loads of carrots, cilantro, lettuce, limes, and jalapeno
peppers, a DEA official said. Sixty percent of each shipment was moved to
New York and turned over to Colombian and Dominican distribution cells, the
official said.

The other 40 percent was kept by the Mexican-led gang as payment for the
smuggling operation and was shipped to their cells in Chicago, Houston,
Memphis, Tenn., and Columbus, Ohio for distribution by their own people,
this official said.

Cardenas-Guillen was indicted, along with seven associates, in the last
several weeks in Brownsville on charges of conspiracy to distribute drugs
and of assault on federal officers. The indictments were unsealed Thursday.
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