ICE: Billion Dollar Drug Ring Busted in Arizona

By Devin Browne
October 31, 2011

PHOENIX -- Law enforcement in Arizona said Monday they have dismantled a drug ring that allegedly smuggled $33 million worth of drugs into the state, monthly. To date, 76 suspected members of the ring have been arrested. Law enforcement has also seized more than 60,000 pounds of drugs and 108 weapons, including assault rifles.

Asked if the weapons were related to Operation Fast and Furious, Matt Allen, special agent in charge for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), replied: “We don’t talk about the trace results that come from those firearms.”

Allen went on: “That will obviously be the focus of follow-up investigations, to find out how those weapons ended up in the hands of cartel members.”

Photo courtesy Immigration & Customs Enforcement.
A law enforcement agent stands next to drugs seized as a part of an investigation that they said brought down a multi-billion dollar drug ring.

Allegedly, the ring was operating on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel, though their intelligence only connects the top Arizona ring leaders with drug lieutenants in the Mexican border town of Sonoyta, in the state of Sonora, not in Sinaloa.

Federal agents said the drug trafficking organization controlled the 80-mile stretch of the border from eastern Yuma County to just before Santa Cruz County.

“This organization dominated that corridor in terms of bringing marijuana and other hard drugs into the United States,” Allen said. “So in that corridor, this was the group that owned that real estate.”

When asked who owns that part of the border now, Allen responded: “That’s yet to be seen.”

Sonoyta, Mexico

The small Mexican border town law enforcement agents said was at the center of a billion dollar smuggling ring.