DRUG VIOLENCE EASY TO FIND, AGENTS SAY

They started slowly, infiltrating the vast Phoenix drug market with a
team of all-stars, handpicked from around the nation.

The federal agents came to Phoenix prepared to take on the rising tide
of drug-related violence, where armed criminals are ready to kick in
doors, rob armed drug-runners and shoot anyone who gets in the way.

Their plan: Go undercover, lure in the violent crooks by soliciting
them to rob drug dealers, then take them down.

In the end, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents
arrested 70 people, seized about $39,000 and took dozens of guns and
other weapons off the street, authorities said Tuesday.

The arrests were only a dent in the problem, they said. What surprised
them most was the number of people they found ready to join complete
strangers for robbery and murder in Phoenix's drug underworld.

"This proved what we know to be true," said Dennis Burke, the new U.S.
attorney in the District of Arizona. "When drugs and distribution of
drugs are in our neighborhoods, violent armed criminals follow behind
them."

The team of about a dozen special agents came because the spike in
drug-related crime was becoming evident to law enforcement months
before Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon told Congress about the home-invasion
crisis in the Valley. By the time Gordon was telling a congressional
committee in March about the estimated 366 abductions in Phoenix last
year, the ATF was already preparing to send a team of experienced
undercover agents to confront the roving strong-arm robbery crews
targeting drug-stash houses in the area.

A fast start

Their first arrests showed the agents what they were up against.

An undercover agent met with five suspects on the afternoon of June 11
in the parking lot of a hotel on Grand Avenue, a week after the men
and the agent had met through a confidential informant. The men came
prepared to rob nearly $500,000 worth of cocaine. They left in
handcuffs. Agents discovered a 12-gauge shotgun, a semiautomatic
handgun and a revolver in the car the men were driving, along with a
bulletproof vest.

Months later, the same scenario played out with one of the suspects
pulling a handgun on an undercover agent moments before more than a
dozen other agents swarmed the scene with their guns drawn to arrest
the suspects.

"They're not going to think twice about killing anybody who gets in
their way," said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jim Needles of the
sting's targets.

The undercover agents interviewed for this story could not be
identified in order to protect their safety.

Inevitable transition

Phoenix's transition into a haven for drug crime was almost
inevitable, experts say.

With the county's population explosion now reaching 4 million,
freeways followed, providing easy access to other major metropolitan
areas.

More drugs are being smuggled through Arizona because authorities have
beefed up border security in other states. The amount of pot seized
between the state's ports of entry has increased by nearly 85 percent
in the past five years to more than 800,000 pounds.

And the 2.7 million-acre Tohono O'odham Reservation, which straddles
the Arizona-Mexico border, makes up a large part of the "remote,
largely underprotected border area" that the National Drug
Intelligence Center cites as a major reason Arizona has become a drug
hub.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard has said that a smuggler can
get from the border to 59th Avenue and Baseline Road in southwest
Phoenix without ever hitting pavement. The empty, cheap and
foreclosure homes available as stash houses in the Valley compound
those problems.

Those factors draw in drug couriers from all over the country looking
to pick up drugs or drop off money. Some of those criminals decide to
stick around hoping to find an easy score in a drug-stash house with
poorly armed guards.

"It's going on all over the country but in certain parts more than
others," said one undercover agent who has worked in Florida for
nearly 20 years.

Commitment issues

An operation last week was the result of a chance encounter. An
informant talked to some men who approached him outside a west Phoenix
fast-food restaurant. Soon, the three men agreed they were interested
in robbing a drug house.

They returned the next day, and after a 15-minute conversation, they
agreed to bring at least eight men to kill a couple of drug couriers
in the process.

ATF agents had them in their sights. The whole conversation had been
monitored and recorded by agents in other vehicles in the parking lot.

But when it came time for the entire group to meet for the heist, the
men didn't show.

One of the biggest challenges for agents was getting criminals to
return to commit themselves to the deal. First, they had to agree to
the heist while being monitored. Then, they had to return, armed and
ready for the crime, allowing agents to arrest them on a combination
of weapons and conspiracy charges.

Though the robbers in last week's case backed out, the agents were
confident they'd return.

"They'll go wherever the profit is," said Pete Forcelli, an ATF
supervisor in the Phoenix office. "Greed is their motivation, and the
problem is they'll stop at nothing."

Harsh sentences

Out-of-state agents working with out-of-state confidential informants
can make for a tough assignment, but court documents indicate the team
set up its first successful sting within weeks of arriving in Phoenix
in May.

One longtime undercover agent from Chicago noted that in his city the
gangs typically work among themselves, with Black street gangs
targeting each other, for example. Phoenix is different, he said, with
few allegiances among criminals and no shortage of willing robbers.
One out-of-town confidential informant was able to set up a deal 90
minutes after he arrived in town. The stings frequently found robbery
crews from different parts of the city working together to accomplish
their common goal.

"(Agents) are tripping all over these guys," the undercover agent
said.

The abundance of criminals and easy access to drugs means plenty of
work will remain after these ATF agents have moved on.

Needles said the Phoenix office is reorganizing so a group of agents
will be available to deal with violent crime. Agents will now begin to
use the threat of harsh federal sentences to seek information from the
suspects already locked up.

The agents said the cooperation of the U.S. Attorney's Office is
essential to an operation like this because federal sentencing
guidelines come with mandatory minimums attached to the types of
gun-and-conspiracy charges the suspects are facing.

The threat of sentences that can start at 10 to 15 years makes these
types of criminals more willing to offer up information.

"You're looking at 15 years' mandatory minimum. The only way out of
that is to cooperate with the government," Forcelli said. "Usually,
home-invasion crews are not your first-level criminals. They've been
involved in other crime first."

Forcelli worked with a similar crew in New York that started with two
arrests and ended with 21 additional arrests that allowed officers to
solve 145 robberies and six murders.

Those are the kind of results the agency is counting on in Phoenix,
Needles said. "This type of violent crime in the metropolitan area is
out of control. These are hardened criminals, and we're not going to
handle them with kid gloves."