BIG DEA BUSTS AFFECT CARTELS LITTLE, STUDY SAYS

Calexico, Imperial County -- On a sleepy boulevard of motels and
fast-food joints near the Mexican border, police stopped a car with a
broken tail light. In the trunk, an officer found a trash bag
containing 48 pounds of narcotics, and in the driver's pocket, scraps
of paper scrawled with phone numbers.

Almost four years later, a grave Eric Holder called his first news
conference as attorney general and announced where those phone
numbers had led - to a sweeping investigation called Operation
Xcellerator, which produced the largest-ever federal crackdown on
Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, with 761 people arrested and 23 tons of
narcotics seized.

Standing with Holder that day in 2009 was acting Drug Enforcement
Administration chief Michele Leonhart, who declared: "Today we have
dealt the Sinaloa drug cartel a crushing blow."

But just how crushing was it? An Associated Press investigation casts
doubt on whether the crackdown caused any significant setback for the
cartel. It still ranks near the top of Mexico's drug gangs, and most
of those arrested were underlings who had little connection to the
cartel and were swiftly replaced. The cartel leader remains free,
along with his top commanders.

The findings confirm what many critics of the drug war have said for
years: The government is quick to boast about large arrests or drug
seizures, but many of its most-publicized efforts result in little,
if any, slowdown in the drug trade.

"These big sweeps are going to have an impact for a little bit at the
local level. It's going to be a blip. If you're a drug user, you're
going to have a hard time getting your fix for a while," said Eric
Sevigney, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina
who researches what happens to drug dealers after they are arrested.
"But over a short period of time, the market is going to correct
itself. And over the long-term period, there's really little effect
in these types of seizures."

The AP conducted a detailed review of the operation. It tracked 193
of the people arrested, filed Freedom of Information Act requests,
analyzed thousands of pages of court records and interviewed dozens
of people such as prisoners, former suspects, law enforcement agents
and criminal law experts. Among the findings:

- -- Federal agents do not nab top cartel bosses. None of the bosses
who control their syndicates have ever been arrested in the United
States. They are all believed to be living in Mexico, where they can
more easily dodge law enforcement.

- -- Many of the people they do arrest are not even middle management.
They are low-level American street dealers and "mules" who help
smuggle the drugs.

- -- A third of those arrested are already out on the streets. Jurors
acquitted them, or prosecutors decided there was not enough evidence
to hold them. Others jumped bail or went undercover for the DEA.

- -- Authorities often announce high arrest numbers, but some suspects
are counted twice. An arrested street dealer may show up in the
statistics of several Justice Department sweeps.

Operation Xcellerator was one of five major federal investigations
targeting Mexican cartels in less than four years. The sweeps yielded
more than 5,000 arrests and more than 160 tons of confiscated
marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. But the cartels
continue to distribute those drugs and bring their profits, estimated
at more than $30 billion a year, home to Mexico.