Dismantling
Drug Cartels
Protecting
you and your family is my top priority. Whether it's protecting you from
consumer fraud, or the drug cartels that threaten our way of life, I will put
protecting you, your family and our country first. When I took office, I greatly
increased the budget for working with federal and local law enforcement to
dismantle drug cartels. Here are a few examples:
Mexican Sinaloa Cartel
Mexican Sinaloa Cartel
- Arrested 21 suspected members of a drug trafficking organization working on behalf of the Mexican sinaloa cartel. This operation effectively dismantled the organization that monopolized drug smuggling through the Tohono O'odham reservation on the border between Arizona and Mexico.
Cocaine
Trafficking
- Arrested 17 members of a large scale cocaine trafficking organization which had smuggled into the United States between 25 and 33 million dollars worth of cocaine. The operation dismantled a sophisticated and large scale cocaine smuggling enterprise which smuggled 35 kilograms of cocaine per day, 3 times per week, hidden in vehicles that entered through Nogales, Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, like clockwork. That operation is dismantled.
Operation Pipeline
Express
- Completed "Operation Pipeline Express," which involved the arrest of 76 individuals who smuggled more than 330 tons of illegal narcotics a year through Arizona's western desert, generating almost 2 billion dollars in elicit proceeds. It had produced such huge profits by having a virtual monopoly of smuggling drugs over an 80 mile section of Arizona's border with Mexico, from Yuma to Sells. It has been shut down.
Operation Crank
Call
- Arrested 217 people in connection with "Operation Crank Call," which dismantled another operation linked to the sinaloa cartel. 12 million dollars in illegal drugs and 7.8 million dollars in case were seized.
Operation Crystal
Lake
- In Operation Crystal Lake, dismantled a large scale, sophisticated drug trafficking organization that was operating in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The drug trafficking organization was receiving hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine and cocaine from sources in Mexico and then distributing the drugs throughout Phoenix and beyond. During the course of the investigation, law enforcement agents seized 125 pounds of methamphetamine, 90 pounds of cocaine, hundreds of pounds of marijuana and hash and numerous firearms.
