THE DRUG CARTEL NEXT DOOR Monroe Figures Into National La Familia Cartel Bust October 23, 2009
Rafael Cedeno Gonzalez (center), aka 'El Cede' and other alleged members of the drug cartel La Familia. CLICK TO ENLARGE
Map showing reach of the drug cartels into the United States. Map courtesy Mother Jones magazine. CLICK TO ENLARGE
(MONROE, WA) -- It was a massive, intense drug investigation and eventual nationwide drug bust three and one half years in the making.
And when the dust settled over the past two days some 1,200 suspects around the nation – including some here in Monroe - had been arrested, some 11.7. tons of narcotics had been seized as well as 33 million dollars, guns and specially outfitted vehicles used to hide and transport drugs and cash.
And at the heart of all this activity, say federal drug agents, were alleged members and associates of one of the most vicious and dangerous drug cartels in Mexico named La Familia.
La Familia, with a center of operations in the Pacific Coast Mexican state of Michoacan, is just one of many murderous cartels in Mexico that are battling each other for supremacy in the drug business and who now have their well-financed tentacles spread deep within the United States. (See map to the right. Click to enlarge)
LA FAMLIA ENTERS NATIONAL SCENE WITH EXTREME VIOLENCE
La Familia burst onto the national scene September 6, 2006, when 20 masked men stormed into a nightclub in Uruapan, Michoacan in Mexico, fired shots into the air and then ran up to the second floor from where they tossed five human heads onto the black and white dance floor.
The day before, the killers had seized their victims from a mechanic’s shop and cut off their heads with bowie knives while the men writhed in pain.
The gunmen left behind a message, written on cardboard: “The family doesn’t kill for money. It doesn’t kill women. It doesn’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.”
After the atrocity, La Familia took out a half-page advertisement in newspapers claiming to be crime-fighters.
Armed groups linked to Mexico’s drug cartels murdered around 1,500 people in Mexico in 2006 and 2,700 people in 2007, with the 2008 death toll soaring to more than 6,000.
So far this year, according to various press tallies, more than 2,300 people have died. Just last week, nine people were found tortured and beheaded in the streets of Mexico.
And just how powerful are the cartels? Some in the military, security and intelligence communities believe they are already operating as a virtual “parallel state” in Mexico.
Historian Robert Paxton is credited with coining the term parallel state to describe “a collection of organizations or institutions that are state-like in their organization, management and structure, though they are not officially part of the legitimate state or government.”
LA FAMILIA’S REACH INTO WASHINGTON STATE
Last week a Seattle Federal Grand jury indicted 16 people on a variety of federal drug and money laundering charges.
Then Wednesday DEA agents assisted by local police raided some 19 locations through King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties as well as residences in California. Other busts around the nation took place on Thursday.
States where arrests were made or charges filed include Washington, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Locally some of the locations raided included houses and apartments in Renton, Kent, Monroe, Sultan and Everett.
Altogether in the three county raids agents seized 28 pounds of meth and about 22 pounds of cocaine.
They also seized $200,000 cash, seven guns and numerous vehicles, including vehicles in Monroe and Sultan, some of which were fitted with secret compartments used to hide and transport narcotics and cash.
Many of the cars that were confiscated were in Monroe and many of the arrests that were made were made here in Snohomish County.
DEA Acting Special Agent in Charge Mark Thomas said, "So those vehicles were operating, going through these communities putting all this poison out there on the streets, affecting the communities and leading to crime and violence there.”
At the news conference announcing the local arrests and confiscations Monroe Police Operations Commander Steve Clopp said, "Monroe is only five square miles so having eight search warrants within that small city obviously tells you the scope of the trafficking conspiracy that was taking place.”
One of those arrested in the raids was 32-year-old Arturo Barajas Garcia of Renton. Authorities described him as the local "coordinator" who distributed methamphetamine and cocaine for La Familia in the Northwest.
Below is a report posted on the Internet by CNN last night about the nationwide drug arrests and confiscations.
LA FAMILIA: A VERY STRANGE, CULT LIKE CARTEL
JulyDogs, a web site that gathers intelligence data about the drug cartels in Mexico says La Familia is different than other cartels in that it alone seems to be functioning “with Bible-based overtones. They refer to their assassinations and beheadings as “divine justice”.
Professor George Grayson, Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary and author of the book Mexico’s Struggle with Drugs and Thugs, provided a detailed background report on this aspect of La Familia in February at the Foreign PolicyResearch Institute.
Grayson’s report says La Familia’s current leaders, Bible-toting fanatics Moreno Gonzalez and Mendez Vargas, may have direct or indirect ties with devotees of the “New Jerusalem” movement.
One report says Mexico’s federales are now viewing La Familia as more of a guerrilla group than a straightforward drug cartel.
Unlike other cartels, La Familia goes beyond the production and distribution of marijuana, meth, cocaine and heroin and into the political realm.
La Familia has created a cult-like mystique and developed pseudo-evangelical recruitment techniques that are unique in Mexico.
Federal intelligence officers in Mexico described La Familia leader, Nazario Gonzalez Moreno–El Mas Loco (“The Crazy One”) as a “religious zealot” who totes around his self-published book of “aphorisms” based on the Bible and writings of US evangelical author and former American Focus on The Family writer, John Eldredge.
In the searches and arrests targeting La Familia across Michoacan, the one common denominator federal forces found, along with assault rifles, grenades and drugs, were copies of Eldredge’s Wild At Heart. (Salvaje de Corazon).
La Familia is strongly “pro-family” and requires its members to abstain from alcohol and drugs. There is an indoctrination program all La Familia recruits must go through that inculcates “ personal values, ethical and moral principles consistent with the purposes of the organization.”
Last year, according to one report, La Familia brought in two motivational speakers to lecture its members. The group is hierarchic and maintains strict top-down emotional control of its members.
LIST OF MEXICO’S MAJOR DRUG CARTELS
The following is a list of the major drug cartels operating in Mexico that have tentacles deep in the United States. (From July/August 2009 edition of Mother Jones magazine).
LA FAMILIA MICHOACANA Having made its 2006 debut by throwing five human heads onto a nightclub dance floor, this growing drug/assassination/kidnapping gang began as a Zetas splinter group. Known for leaving poorly spelled notes on its victims and posting murder videos on YouTube.
GULF The Gulf cartel rose by bootlegging liquor into Prohibition-era Texas, but moved on to cocaine and marijuana by the 1980s. Its ascent was aided by Raul Salinas, the corrupt brother of then-President Carlos Salinas. In 2007, leader Osiel Cárdenas was extradited for the attempted murder of a DEA informant, leaving the reins to Osiel's brother, Antonio; Jorge Eduardo Costilla-Sánchez; and Heriberto Lazcano, who runs the muscle known as the Zetas.
LOS ZETAS Originally 30 corrupt elite drug interdiction soldiers who served as Gulf enforcers, the Zetas (notorious for mass beheadings) now control their own drug-supply routes and have branched out into kidnapping and murder for hire.
SINALOA Now Mexico's most powerful cartel, Sinaloa is led by Joaquín "Shorty" Guzmán, who famously "escaped" from a maximum security Mexican prison in 2001. In 2006 he broke a truce to move on Gulf territory like Nuevo Laredo. Guzmán is Forbes' 701st richest person in the world.
TIJUANA/ARELLANO FÉLIX The Arellano Félix clan cut its teeth as Sinaloa soldiers but left in the late 1980s to take over Tijuana. Like the Juárez cartel, Tijuana gained power when the US choked off Caribbean supply routes, pushing trafficking west. Recently, the cartel fractured into two offshoots. One, led by a Félix nephew, is allied with the Zetas cartel, while former lieutenant Eduardo Teodoro "El Teo" García Simental ("The Drug War in Six Acts") is backed by rival Sinaloa.
JUÁREZ Founded by Sinaloa trafficker Amado Carrillo Fuentes (known in narcocorridos as the Lord of the Skies), who died during plastic surgery, the Juárez cartel was historically allied with Sinaloa against the Gulf/Félix alliance. Now headed by Vicente Fuentes, it has ties to the Beltrán Leyva organization.
BELTRÁN LEYVA This Sinaloa splinter group upped the violence last May, when some 40 hit men gunned down Joaquín "Shorty" Guzmán's son. Guzman (see background on SINALOA above) runs Mexico's most powerful cartel, Sinaloa.
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