Thread: Mexicans: Six arrests a blow to drug cartel

Mexicans: Six arrests a blow to drug cartel


Tucson, AZ, 09.17.2003 - NOGALES, Sonora - The arrests of six people last week in connection with a 1,000-foot tunnel that crossed from Mexico into Arizona delivered a serious blow to a powerful drug cartel known for running tunnels across the Mexico-Arizona border, said Mexican officials involved in the investigation.

The six men arrested are believed to be part of Joaquin Guzmán Loera's drug cartel. Guzmán Loera is a drug kingpin who escaped from a Guadalajara maximum-security prison in 2001.

Guzmán Loera had built and operated a tunnel from Agua Prieta, Sonora, to Douglas through which tons of cocaine were smuggled, according to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration report to Congress in 1997. That tunnel was discovered in 1990.

The cartel also has been charged with transporting cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States for two larger Colombian organizations and is also suspected of trafficking in marijuana and heroin.

The latest tunnel was "incredibly equipped" said Rosa Amelia Soria Cazares, assistant director of the federal prosecutor's office in Nogales, Sonora.

The tunnel is at least 8 feet wide and 12 feet tall and stretches from a poor Sonoran neighborhood on Calle Fenochio to a quiet, heavily landscaped cluster of homes in Nogales, about one-quarter mile west of the Grand Avenue Port of Entry.

The tunnel was equipped with rails, and the rail cars found inside are believed to have been used to transport tons of marijuana and cocaine into Arizona, she said.

More than a dozen drug tunnels have been found linking the two Nogaleses since 1995.

At least four tunnels have been found by Mexican authorities since January alone, including one that originated in a graveyard. That tunnel was found about 200 feet from the latest Nogales drug tunnel.

Federal prosecutors have charged six men with working for Guzmán Loera's cartel:

* Rigoberto Gaxiola Garcia, who authorities believe ran the drug-trafficking arm of Guzmán Loera's organization.

* Juan Luis Guzmán EnrÃ*quez, the chief commander of the Mexican federal investigation agency in Hermosillo, Sonora. The Mexican government charges that he looked the other way while the organization operated the tunnel.

* Humberto Campos Arredondo, who prosecutors say transported drugs through the tunnel.

* Armando Aguirre Cardona, a former member of the federal judicial police, a law enforcement agency that was disbanded because of corruption in its ranks.

* Fernando Espinoza Durazo, who authorities said ran drug-selling operations in Nogales, Sonora.

* Juan Francisco Quintero Arce, who Mexican prosecutors said is a low-level drug smuggler.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration declined to give any new information on the case or details on those arrested, saying it wants to maintain the integrity of an ongoing investigation, said Tony Ryan, an agency spokesman.

Last week, DEA officials said the tunnel operated for at least six months before it was shut down Friday and that several tons of marijuana were seized during the course of a six-month investigation.

I know this house very well. In Nogales it is known as "the Corrals" . This place was as lush as a Panamanian rain forest. The owners had peacocks running around the yard and a handful of huge Great Danes, I know a couple of agents bitten while chasing people through that yard and another who shot one of the dogs. I always wondered where they got their money, now I know.