 |
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | June 2006 
Bust has Hurt Drug Trade
 Sam Skolnik - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
| | At a news conference at Seattle Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters, agents displayed a table full of seized cash and weapons, and DEA Special Agent in Charge Rodney Benson told of more than $1 million and 34 kilograms of cocaine, 10 pounds of heroin and the 12 pounds of methamphetamine taken by agents during the raids. |
Top drug enforcement officials and Seattle police said this week that a recent drug bust involving the arrest of more than 90 alleged drug importers and dealers in the Seattle area had a "huge" impact on the drug trade here.
In an indictment unsealed Wednesday, 20 defendants, mostly from Mexico, were accused of funneling large amounts of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine into Seattle and throughout Western Washington.
According to Assistant Seattle Police Chief Linda Pierce, the dozen dealers sold more than $22,000 in heroin per day in Seattle.
"Just about anyone with a drug addiction" in Seattle in the last few years likely has bought drugs from this group, she said.
Ninety-one people were arrested over the last several days and weeks, and dozens more are expected to be arrested in Washington and elsewhere on the West Coast - and possibly in northern Mexico - in the next several weeks, officials said.
The two-year investigation called "Dry Ice" involved a sophisticated network including drug suppliers and organizers from Tijuana, Mexico; drivers who smuggled the contraband up the Interstate 5 corridor through California to Western Washington; and a network of local street dealers called the "Americanos," who peddled the drugs in Seattle, Tacoma and Yakima, prosecutors said.
John McKay, U.S. attorney for Western Washington, said the impact of all of these arrests will be felt for a long while.
The stings, said McKay, "severely impacted the business of drug dealing here."
At a news conference at Seattle Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters, agents displayed a table full of seized cash and weapons, and DEA Special Agent in Charge Rodney Benson told of more than $1 million and 34 kilograms of cocaine, 10 pounds of heroin and the 12 pounds of methamphetamine taken by agents during the raids.
Benson said drugs had been hidden inside cookie jars and Kleenex boxes. Drivers used secret compartments to hide the drugs heading north from Mexico, and the cash heading back south.
The drug bust "severely impacted a major Mexican organized crime group that's been operating in the Seattle area for some time," said Benson.
No arrests have been made in Mexico yet, he said.
Many of the defendants made their initial appearances in U.S. District Court on Thursday.
Several more defendants swept up in recent raids have appeared in earlier federal court hearings in Seattle and Tacoma, and more are slated in the coming days.
The defendants employed countersurveillance methods to try to avoid detection and capture, prosecutors said in charging papers.
According to the indictment, defendants warned each other about law enforcement actions, such as physical surveillance, arrests of co-conspirators, searches of vehicles and seizures of controlled substances.
Defendants also counseled each other "regarding how they should react to law enforcement actions," according to the documents.
According to federal prosecutors, the Dry Ice investigation was related to two earlier operations, called "Operation Garage Sale," and "Snow Dog."
In Garage Sale, 22 people were arrested in Tacoma earlier this month. One of them is alleged to have dealt drugs from a mobile home in Kalama, north of Portland, while on electronic home monitoring for a pending federal drug case in Nebraska.
Three were arrested in late May in the Snow Dog operation. Agents in that case seized more than 25 kilos of cocaine and 3 pounds of pure, "ice" methamphetamine. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us