COCAINE SEIZED ON ITS WAY TO CHICAGO

U.S. Agents Follow Drugs From Texas

A 189-kilogram shipment of cocaine intercepted by federal agents in Texas
was transported to Will County this week in an undercover operation that
resulted in the arrests of men from Texas and Berwyn, the U.S. attorney's
office said Tuesday.

The bust was the latest in a series of large seizures of Chicago-bound
drugs along Interstate Highway 55.

Cesar Uriel Gatica-Martinez, 33, of McAllen, Texas, and Claudio
Tino-Martinez, 21, of Berwyn, were arrested Monday night at a storage
facility in Plainfield as they allegedly transferred 16 boxes of cocaine
from a pickup truck to a van, according to a criminal complaint filed
Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

Both men are being held pending a hearing Thursday, said Randall Samborn, a
spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago. Prosecutors are
seeking to have the men sent to Texas for prosecution, Samborn said.

The drug shipment ended up in Plainfield after an undercover agent posing
as a drug runner met with Gatica-Martinez in Palmview, Texas, on Sunday
afternoon, according to the court documents. The undercover agent agreed to
drive the cocaine from Texas to Chicago.

The agent drove away with the drugs but then flew the shipment to Chicago
with agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration. The agent met
Gatica-Martinez and Tino-Martinez on Monday in a McDonald's parking lot at
I-55 and U.S. Highway 30. They went to a nearby public storage facility,
where the agent began transferring the drugs to Gatica-Martinez's van. DEA
agents and Will County Gang Suppression Unit officers then arrested the
men, according to the complaint.

The seizure comes after a July 7 seizure of 220 kilograms of cocaine in
Bolingbrook. Twin brothers Juan G. and Juan C. Munoz, 18, were arrested and
charged with possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. They are being
held on $10 million bond each in the Will County Jail.

In March, 14,000 pounds of marijuana on its way from Texas to Chicago was
seized from a semi-truck parked in a lot at I-55 and Illinois Highway 53 in
Romeoville.