By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com The Feds have been busy in Detroit, where a major drug bust ended with 15 people indicted for peddling a “massive amount” of cocaine and marijuana across the metro Detroit area, reports the Detroit Free Press. All were charged with running the operation from 2008 to 2011, while three were also…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com The third and final defendant in a DEA operation targeting three Colombian drug runners tied to a Colombian drug cartel has been sentenced in Seattle, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Hector Fabio Zapata was slapped with 30 years in prison on Monday, the last to face sentencing in the cocaine-trafficking probe. Like…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com The one-time Mexican leader of “one of the most notorious multi-national drug trafficking organizations to ever exist” pleaded guilty to a variety of charges in a federal court in San Diego on Wednesday, according to the FBI. Benjamin Arellan-Felix was the leader of the Tijuana Cartel/Arellano-Felix Organization (AFO) from 1986 until…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Barbara Grohl, head of the Colorado Department of Revenue, has written a letter asking the DEA to loosen federal controls on marijuana and recognize its “potential medicinal value,” the Denver Post reports. The letter, written on Dec. 22, is the result of a law passed last year; that legislation required the…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Suspected drug couriers from the east coast and Panama apparently used some innovation, smuggling cocaine and heroin in small pockets sewn into Lycra shorts and in their hair weaves and wigs, according to the website Government News Service. GNS reports that 12 individuals were charged in a 20-count indictment, the results…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Tuesday in Arizona was a big one for the DEA’s Phoenix Field Office, where authorities seized 44 firearms, 650 pounds of marijuana and a $7.8 million in cash in a 15-month sting dubbed “Operation Crank Call.” The trafficking network is believed to be related to the infamous Sinaloa Cartel of Mexico….
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Tides of troubled water are lapping Caribbean shores it seems. Federal agencies have seen a sharp increase in drug-money seizures in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands over the past year, the AP reports, “an apparent sign that more drug proceeds are flowing through the US island territory and the Caribbean…
Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Shades of Operation Fast and Furious? DEA agents have laundered or smuggled–or, “let walk”–millions of dollars in drug proceeds in an effort to trace the money to the end recipients, reports the New York Times. The DEA sought to understand how cartels moved their money, where assets were kept and, ultimately, who…
