Source: Houston Chronicle, page 1
http://www.chron.com/cgibin/auth/story/content/chronicle/page1/97/08/12/drugs.html
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Mexican drug cells smashed by U.S. agents

By RONALD J. OSTROW
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON Federal agents said Monday they have broken up
three drug cells run by a powerful Mexican trafficking cartel
that moved vast amounts of cocaine from Mexico to New York City.

Twentynine people were arrested Monday in several U.S. cities as
a result of a 10month investigation documenting the increasing
power of Mexican drug gangs in U.S. cities traditionally
dominated by Colombian traffickers.

Monday's actions also included the unsealing of indictments
charging 56 individuals, some of them already in custody, with
violations of federal drug laws. Indictments were unsealed in New
York City, El Paso, Grand Rapids, Mich., and Tucson, Ariz.

"This was the first time we saw these major criminal
organizations from Mexico in New York City distributing ton
levels of cocaine and taking millions of dollars of cash out,"
said Thomas Constantine, head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

U.S. agents arrested about 90 people overall and seized a total
of 11.8 tons of cocaine, more than 6 tons of marijuana and $18.4
million in U.S. currency in two operations that began last fall,
according to federal law enforcement sources.

Constantine said the arrests and seizures are a "major incursion"
into trafficking operations linked to the organization run by
alleged Mexican drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes until his death
July 4 after plastic surgery.

"Mexican drug traffickers are displacing at least some of the
Colombian cocaine organizations which have traditionally
dominated the New York City cocaine traffic," Constantine said.
"These organized syndicates whose leadership is based in Mexico
have dumped tons of cocaine on New York City, and they are moving
closer to eclipsing the Colombians and controlling the U.S. drug
market."

He estimated that Mexicanrun organizations now account for the
sale of at least 30 percent of the cocaine distributed in the
United States. U.S. authorities estimate that up to three
quarters of the cocaine that reaches the United States comes
through Mexico.

The expansion of Mexicanrun trafficking cells to the Eastern
seaboard resembles what occurred earlier in the West, as
Colombian cartels used Mexican organizations to transport cocaine
into the United States, paying them with as much as one half of
each shipment rather than with cash. The Mexicans then
distributed their share of the product in California and the
Midwest, according to DEA intelligence.

The focus on New York began last October, when DEA intelligence
received information that a major drug organization was operating
"out of Juarez," across the Mexican border from El Paso, into the
eastern United States, Constantine said.

He said U.S. agents had no "hard information" on the report until
Oct. 30, 1996, when Todd Brackhahn, a trooper for the Texas
Department of Public Safety, stopped a van with New York license
plates and found $2 million in cash in a hidden compartment.
Through investigation, he learned that the money and the van's
occupants, two Mexican nationals, were headed for Juarez.

The next break came on Dec. 3, when a state and local narcotics
enforcement group got a tip that "some funny things" were going
on in a Tucson warehouse. Armed with a search warrant, agents
seized 5.3 tons of cocaine.

They also determined that another 6,000 kilos of the drug had
been taken to New York only days earlier in trucks allegedly
driven by employees of a Battle Creek, Mich., trucking company,
the law enforcement sources said.

Among those arrested Monday were seven drivers for the trucking
concern, including its owner.

On Dec. 13, Brackhahn stopped an 18wheeler truck for speeding
near Tyler, Texas, and found 2,700 pounds of marijuana in a
secret compartment. An investigation determined that the truck
was bound for the New York City suburbs of New Rochelle and
Pelham, and that the marijuana had come from an El Paso
warehouse.

Surveillance of the El Paso warehouse by DEA, FBI and Texas
troopers established that on Dec. 15 two days after Brackhahn
had stopped the 18wheeler 1.5 tons of cocaine were taken by
another truck from the same facility, and it was seized by
federal agents.

At the same time, federal agents found that the cocaine and
marijuana movements were being directed by two Juarezbased
cells, both working for Carrillo, the law enforcement sources
said.

The investigation then gained momentum with significant cash
seizures, including $3.25 million from the back of an 18wheeler
truck in New York state, then $5.65 million in "street
amounts" $10 and $20 bills in El Paso from a secret roof
compartment of one of the trucks belonging to the Battle Creek
company.

On June 11, agents seized 614 kilos of cocaine from a warehouse
near Jersey City, N.J., and arrested five Mexican nationals. The
warehouse, rented by the Mexicans, could hold "multiple" 18
wheelers, and it was established that the same group had rented
warehouses in New Rochelle and Pelham.