INFORMANT FOR DEA EXPOSES DRUG UNDERWORLD

When South Houston police pulled over a gold Chevy Malibu for speeding
on a summer afternoon in 2005, it marked the beginning of the end for
at least 68 drug traffickers who over the next four years would be
chased and charged with handling thousands of pounds of cocaine and
millions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels.

From that single traffic stop emerged a portrait of drug dealing and
money laundering, murder and kidnapping, in which Houston was its
central character -- the trampoline from which rampant chaos and
criminality sprang, records show. It also helped unravel the secret
lives of cartel workers who blended in as they went about the business
of pumping drugs into the United States, and profits back into Mexico.

The driver became a government informant in exchange for leniency on
unrelated criminal charges. His cooperation led to a major
investigation in Houston, Operation Three Stars. The informant's
identity remains a Drug Enforcement Administration secret, even as in
late May five defendants from the last indictment in the investigation
were sentenced to prison.

"It always comes back to the drugs," said an agent who was involved
with the operation and spoke on the condition on anonymity. "That is
the heartbeat of all this activity out there."

More than $5 million was seized as well as 3,000 pounds of cocaine
during Three Stars, which resulted in nine federal
indictments.

While the operation didn't snare any of Mexico's infamous drug cartel
leaders, court documents and interviews with federal agents and
lawyers indicate it dismantled five organizations.

The informant driving the Chevy Malibu tweaked DEA agents' interest
with his insider's knowledge of a cartel-run bus line that shuttled
cocaine and cash between Monterrey, Mexico and finally to Houston.

Buses' Owner Gets Life

Narcotics, he said, were stashed in compartments built into the walls
and gas tanks. Once the passengers were dropped off, the buses headed
for an enclosed parking lot near Winkler Drive and Main Street, not
far from Hobby Airport. The narcotics were unloaded and repackaged for
distribution to New York, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and other cities.

The owner of three of buses used in another operation, also tied to
the cartels, was Elisa Castillo, a 53-year-old grandmother, sentenced
in May to life in prison. She insists she was tricked by a friend into
putting the vehicles in her name. "I just can't believe it," she told
the Chronicle in a interview from jail. "I am 100 percent not guilty,
not guilty."

Authorities seized more than $2 million on one of her buses as the
profits headed south to cartel bosses in Mexico.

Zoran Yankovich, head of the DEA's Houston field division, said
"Operation Three Stars exposed those members of the Mexican drug
cartels operating in our city, camouflaged, unbeknownst to the average
citizen. The results of this investigation should send the message
that the (DEA) will not allow drug traffickers to come into the United
States and operate their illegal businesses inside our borders."

The traffickers worked chiefly for the Gulf Cartel trafficking
syndicate, but sometimes helped other organizations. Three Stars
linked the cells to at least seven homicides, nine home invasions and
five kidnappings in the Houston area since 2006.

Most victims were players in the drug world. They were shot repeatedly
and sometimes beaten before their deaths.

Court documents indicate law enforcement officers spent thousands of
hours watching and listening to traffickers.

From Galveston to Houston, Pearland to Columbus as well as in
Richmond and other places, they hid near parking lots, homes, bars,
shopping centers and a church picnic.

"You can sit there for hours, days, weeks and months of surveillance
until you identify that one action that takes place that puts it all
together for you," said the DEA spokeswoman Violet Szeleczky.

DEA agents, working with the Pasadena Police Narcotics Task Force,
Houston Police, and the Harris County Sheriff's Office tailed
traffickers who unknowingly led them to meetings, stash houses and
rendezvous.

Of the people arrested on federal drug-trafficking charges, some had
full-time jobs as criminals, others kept day jobs.

Castillo, the woman who owned three buses had once worked for more
than 20 years at an optical company.

Others snared included a tractor-trailer driver, a printing shop
employee, a tire shop owner, a bus baggage handler, a man who drove a
taxi back in Mexico. Several told authorities they had made money
buying and selling used cars.

Big Break at Stakeout

One of biggest breaks came from staking out a stretch of Interstate
10, near Columbus after getting a tip that Isidro Leal Gonzalez, a mid
level drug boss, was on his way to Houston for a meeting. Agents drove
up and down the highway, literally looking in windows of cars with
Mexican license plates.

And finally, there he was: driving a black Volkswagen Jetta. As agents
trailed him, he ultimately led authorities to a warehouse and other
traffickers.

But Gonzalez got away. He remains one of the top fugitives being
sought by the DEA in Houston, and is believed to be hiding in Mexico.