16 August 2006
United States Breaks Up "Drug Pipeline" from Mexico
Group shipped potent "black tar" heroin into U.S. cities
Washington -- U.S. law enforcement authorities have arrested 138 people in a case involving the shipment of a potent form of heroin from Mexico into the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
In an August 15 statement, the DEA said an investigation called "Operation Black Gold Rush," involving a number of U.S. law enforcement agencies, exposed a network of illegal aliens that controlled a pipeline of "black tar" heroin operating from the Mexican state of Nayarit to Nashville, Tennessee, and at least 14 cities between those two points.
The DEA said black tar heroin gets its name from being dark and sticky in appearance, and is made from the opium poppy plant. The DEA said black tar heroin accounts for as much as 80 percent of the total heroin produced in Mexico. Black tar heroin can be smoked as well as injected, and is less expensive (at the street level) in the United States than other types of heroin, said the DEA.
To date, the United States has seized more than $500,000 in cash representing illegal proceeds from the DEA-led Operation Black Gold Rush, as well as 17 kilograms of the black tar heroin.
Members of the trafficking organization that controlled the pipeline are alleged to have been responsible for importing and distributing about 10 kilograms to 15 kilograms of black tar heroin monthly from Mexico into the United States. That amount of the drug could be sold at an estimated street value of more than $3 million. Some of the cities involved in the trafficking group's operations included Indianapolis; Denver; Los Angeles and Riverside, California; Charlotte, North Carolina; Columbia, Greenville, Charleston and Florence in South Carolina; and Phoenix.
The DEA alleged that the organization used illegal aliens as couriers, who were part of a "call and deliver" system of drug distribution whereby customers could have their heroin literally delivered to the front door. The organization’s financial managers allegedly laundered the illicit proceeds using a combination of wire remitters and bulk currency transport, said the DEA.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that the United States and Mexico are both "absolutely committed" to combating the illicit narcotics trade.
During her trip to Mexico in March 2005, Rice said that within the "context of Mexico's own laws," that country has been a "very good partner" on counternarcotics issues. (See related article.)
The U.S. State Department said in its 2006 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, released March 1, that Mexico is one of the largest producers of heroin consumed in the United States.
The report, covering the year 2005, said Mexican opium poppy growers used small, widely dispersed plots in remote, inaccessible regions of Mexico, including the Sierra Madre mountains, to avoid having their crops detected and eradicated. The section of the report pertaining to Mexico is available on the State Department Web site, along with more information on U.S. policy toward Mexico.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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