Pubdate: Thu, 23 Sept 1999 Source: Chicago Tribune (IL) Copyright: 1999 Chicago Tribune Company Contact: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ Forum: http://www.chicagotribune.com/interact/boards/ Author: Naftali Bendavid and Maurice Possley U.S. CLAIMS VICTORY OVER MEXICAN DRUG RING Chicago Arrests Led To Demise Of High-Tech Smuggling, Agents Say WASHINGTON -- U.S. authorities announced Wednesday that they had dismantled a high-tech drug-smuggling operation that has shipped hundreds of tons of cocaine, marijuana and heroin from Mexico through Chicago and other U.S. cities. Operation Impunity netted 93 arrests over its two-year existence, according to officials from the U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Investigators seized $26 million, vintage BMWs and other assets, as well as more than 26,400 pounds of cocaine and 4,800 pounds of marijuana. Officials said the drug lords running the ring had thought they were immune to arrest, in part because they used communications technology. The arrests, investigators said, showed that even clever smugglers cannot act with impunity, hence the operation's name. "These traffickers thought they could operate without any fear of capture in the United States," said Donnie Marshall, acting chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He added, "We effectively dismantled this organization from top to bottom." Investigators did that, officials said, by countering the traffickers' technology with sophisticated wiretapping, surveillance and other devices of their own. "The drug smugglers in this case used an incredible array of sophisticated electronics equipment," said Raymond Kelly, commissioner of the Customs Service. "It took our best to beat their best. . . . It is an example of creative law enforcement overcoming creative criminals." The Mexico-based ring originally was headed by Amado Carillo Fuentes, who died in 1997 after a botched plastic surgery operation that was intended to help him evade police. Fuentes was known as "lord of the skies" because he used airplanes to ship illegal drugs, and his organization flourished even after his death, officials said. The ring smuggled drugs, both its own and those of Colombia-based cartels, across the Mexico-U.S. border using everything from cars to backpackers, officials said. Once the drugs were in this country, they were stored at "stash houses" then placed in trucks filled with cilantro or watermelons headed for Chicago, Atlanta, San Diego and New York. >From these distribution points the drugs were disseminated to other cities. The operation ultimately sent more than $100 million in cash back across the border to its leaders, according to authorities. The top target of Operation Impunity was Gilberto Salinas-Doria, who oversaw the transportation of drugs from an assembly point in Reynosa, Mexico, into the United States. Salinas-Doria is in custody in Mexico, and U.S. officials have requested his extradition. Although officials pulled together Operation Impunity for a single dramatic announcement Wednesday, investigators have been making arrests and seizures for some time, as the Chicago facet of the operation makes clear. Chicago was crucial both to the trafficking operation and to the investigators who cracked it. Jesse Quintanilla, the alleged head of the ring's Chicago "cell," was arrested by the DEA on May 26, 1998, as he left his home in the 6100 block of South Kilpatrick Avenue--and that marked a turning point in the investigation, officials said. DEA agents reportedly found $5 million in cash in Quintanilla's home, as well as a drug ledger in his Lexus indicating he had received nearly a ton of cocaine during a recent five-day period. They also said they found $243,000 in cash in a duffel bag he was carrying. Quintanilla had been located through his cousin, Steve Webber, who was arrested earlier that day after a search of storage lockers at 4644-4650 W. 63rd St. Agents found 682 pounds of cocaine in two lockers. Also that day, agents raided Ortiz Produce Co., 2021 W. 18th St., and recovered 2,800 pounds of cocaine packed in carrot crates. Ten men, including Quintanilla, Webber and Jose Luis Ortiz, the owner of the produce company, were indicted on charges of conspiring to deliver cocaine and are awaiting trial. The indictment also accused the defendants of laundering some of the drug sale proceeds through casinos in the Chicago area and in Las Vegas. Some key Chicago figures are still at large, including Camilo Barraza, who allegedly oversaw distribution in Chicago. The ledger seized from Quintanilla, according to court records, indicated that in the month of May alone, the operation moved $30 million worth of cocaine through the produce warehouse. The indictment alleged that drugs were shipped via truck from Texas. Authorities said that after his arrest, Quintanilla told them that after the cocaine was delivered to the warehouse, he dispatched pickup trucks that took smaller loads to various spots around Chicago for delivery to customers. Other arrests have been made in the Dominican Republic, Miami and Texas. The governments of Mexico and the Dominican Republican cooperated in the investigation, U.S. officials said. "This case is important because it identified key players at every level of the drug-smuggling transportation and distribution network," Kelly said. "It's a top-to-bottom look at how drug-smuggling operations work today." - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea