The
Associated Press www.nydailynews.com April 1,
2013 (Part II of II)
Statistics from the DEA suggest a heightened cartel
presence in more U.S. cities. In 2008, around 230 American communities reported
some level of cartel presence. That number climbed to more than 1,200 in 2011,
the most recent year for which information is available, though the increase is
partly due to better reporting.
Dozens of federal agents and local police
interviewed by the AP said they have identified cartel members or operatives
using wiretapped conversations, informants or confessions. Hundreds of court
documents reviewed by the AP appear to support those statements.
"This is the first time we've been seeing it -
cartels who have their operatives actually sent here," said Richard
Pearson, a lieutenant with the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department, which
arrested four alleged operatives of the Zetas cartel in November in the suburb
of Okolona.
People who live on the tree-lined street where
authorities seized more than 2,400 pounds of marijuana and more than $1 million
in cash were shocked to learn their low-key neighbors were accused of working
for one of Mexico's most violent drug syndicates, Pearson said.
One of the best documented cases is Jose Gonzalez-Zavala,
who was dispatched to the U.S. by the La Familia cartel, according to court
filings.
In 2008, the former taxi driver and father of five
moved into a spacious home at 1416 Brookfield Drive in a middle-class
neighborhood of Joliet, southwest of Chicago. From there, court papers
indicate, he oversaw wholesale shipments of cocaine in Illinois, Wisconsin and
Indiana.
Wiretap transcripts reveal he called an
unidentified cartel boss in Mexico almost every day, displaying the deference
any midlevel executive might show to someone higher up the corporate ladder.
Once he stammered as he explained that one customer would not pay a debt until
after a trip.
"No," snaps the boss. "What we need
is for him to pay."
The same cartel assigned Jorge Guadalupe
Ayala-German to guard a Chicago-area stash house for $300 a week, plus a
promised $35,000 lump-sum payment once he returned to Mexico after a year or
two, according to court documents.
Ayala-German brought his wife and child to help
give the house the appearance of an ordinary family residence. But he was
arrested before he could return home and pleaded guilty to multiple trafficking
charges. He will be sentenced later this year.
Socorro Hernandez-Rodriguez was convicted in 2011
of heading a massive drug operation in suburban Atlanta's Gwinnett County. The
chief prosecutor said he and his associates were high-ranking figures in the La
Familia cartel - an allegation defense lawyers denied.
And at the end of February outside Columbus, Ohio,
authorities arrested 34-year-old Isaac Eli Perez Neri, who allegedly told
investigators he was a debt collector for the Sinaloa cartel.
An Atlanta attorney who has represented reputed
cartel members says authorities sometimes overstate the threat such men pose.
"Often, you have a kid whose first time
leaving Mexico is sleeping on a mattress at a stash house playing Game Boy,
eating Burger King, just checking drugs or money in and out," said Bruce
Harvey. "Then he's arrested and gets a gargantuan sentence. It's
sad."
Because cartels accumulate houses full of cash,
they run the constant risk associates will skim off the top. That points to the
main reason cartels prefer their own people: Trust is hard to come by in their
cutthroat world. There's also a fear factor. Cartels can exert more control on
their operatives than on middlemen, often by threatening to torture or kill
loved ones back home.
Danny Porter, chief prosecutor in Gwinnett County,
Ga., said he has tried to entice dozens of suspected cartel members to
cooperate with American authorities. Nearly all declined. Some laughed in his
face.
"They say, `We are more scared of them (the
cartels) than we are of you. We talk and they'll boil our family in
acid,'" Porter said. "Their families are essentially hostages."
Citing the safety of his own family,
Gonzalez-Zavala declined to cooperate with authorities in exchange for years
being shaved off his 40-year sentence.
In other cases, cartel brass send their own family
members to the U.S.
"They're sometimes married or related to
people in the cartels," Porter said. "They don't hire casual
labor." So meticulous have cartels become that some even have operatives
fill out job applications before being dispatched to the U.S., Riley added.
In Mexico, the cartels are known for a staggering
number of killings — more than 50,000, according to one tally. Beheadings are
sometimes a signature.
So far, cartels don't appear to be directly
responsible for large numbers of slayings in the United States, though the
Texas Department of Public Safety reported 22 killings and five kidnappings in
Texas at the hands of Mexican cartels from 2010 through mid- 2011.
Still, police worry that increased cartel activity
could fuel heightened violence.
In Chicago, the police commander who oversees
narcotics investigations, James O'Grady, said street-gang disputes over turf
account for most of the city's uptick in murders last year, when slayings
topped 500 for the first time since 2008. Although the cartels aren't dictating
the territorial wars, they are the source of drugs.Riley's assessment is stark: He argues that the
cartels should be seen as an underlying cause of Chicago's disturbingly high
murder rate.
"They are the puppeteers," he said.
"Maybe the shooter didn't know and maybe the victim didn't know that.
But
if you follow it down the line, the cartels are ultimately responsible."
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