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."