Border Issues: Mexico

Last month, Major Brian Wilcox with the Arizona Department of Public Safety told The Arizona Republic: “Heroin seizures and use are up in Arizona and across the country. The southwest border area is a large trans-shipment area. Heroin is currently being smuggled by pedestrian foot traffic across the border point of entries. It is then collected at stash houses and trans-shipped across the country.”

The DOJ’s 2011 Drug Market Analysis for Arizona reports: “The Sinaloa Car­tel’s wholesale distribution of heroin and marijuana extends beyond Arizona HIDTA counties to much of the United States.”

The Sinaloa Cartel has, in fact, made Arizona the distribution hub for the entire United States.

 “Local law enforcement agencies within the HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) region report that most of the marijuana and heroin that transits the Mexico–Arizona border area is destined for other domestic markets, including those in East Coast states such as New York, Georgia, and Florida, and Midwestern states such as Missouri and Iowa,” the report adds.

Ramona Sanchez, with the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Phoenix office recently said: “The golden triangle is Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango. Intelligence is showing they’re sprucing up poppy-cultivation farms out there. The Sinaloa cartel has taken the stronghold on poppy cultivation. The Sinaloa cartel has had the Nogales-Arizona corridor for years. This is the cradle of heroin cultivation and smuggling that comes out of Mexico.”

The increased traffic is being felt locally, throughout Arizona…

-On October 31, 2011, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) and the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office held a joint press conference to announce the results of a 17-month investigation in which a Sinaloa Cartel smuggling operation had been broken-up.

Operation Pipeline Express resulted in the arrest of 76 suspected smugglers and the seizure of more than 61,000 pounds of marijuana, 160 pounds of heroin, 210 pounds of cocaine, nearly $760,000 in cash, and 108 weapons.

The trafficking ring is believed to have smuggled more than 3.3 million pounds of marijuana, 20,000 pounds of cocaine and 10,000 pounds of heroin from Mexico through Arizona over the past five years, according to ICE

-On October 30, 2011, Francisco Guillermo Morales Esquer, 36, was arrested by Pinal County Sheriff’s deputies after a high-speed chase through the county and caught with $1.6 million worth of drugs. It was the previously deported illegal alien’s second arrest in less than two weeks.

On October 13, Esquer was arrested during a raid on a suspected stash house in which a large number of weapons were discovered. The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) turned the illegal alien over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation.

Then, on October 30, a PCSO deputy clocked Morales driving 50 mph through a school zone in Stanfield. The deputy gave chase with speeds reportedly reaching up to 100 mph.

Eventually, Morales crashed his car in the desert after allegedly trying to run-down a deputy who was placing ‘stop sticks’ on the road.

The smuggler who reportedly works for the Sinaloa Cartel was quickly taken into custody after jumping into an irrigation canal.

Deputies reportedly found 80 pounds of white- and black-tar heroin and eight pounds of methamphetamine in Morales’ vehicle.

-In June 2011, a routine traffic stop in Pinal County led to the discovery of 103 pounds of black-tar heroin in hidden in an SUV.

The driver, Jessica Velasco, 28, told deputies that the Nissan Armada belonged to her husband and she had no knowledge of the drugs hidden inside.

-In June 2010, two men were murdered in Pinal County, as a result of cartel violence, and only a month earlier, Deputy Louie Puroll was ambushed and shot by Mexican drug traffickers.

According to the sheriff’s office, the traffickers used military tactics. Fortunately, Deputy Puroll survived his wounds.

Shortly after those two incidents, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu held a press conference in which he announced that Mexican drug cartels now controlled not only parts of his county, but much of southern Arizona.

Sheriff Babeu said: “We are outgunned, we are out manned and we don’t have the resources here locally to fight this.”

Pinal County deputies have photographed armed smugglers loading drugs into vehicles on Highway 8. The area, which was once a favorite with hikers and off-roaders is now dotted with signs warning the public of the dangers posed by drug and human smugglers.

Over the last five years, the surging supply of heroin has resulted in a nearly 50 percent increase in emergency-room admissions and inpatient hospital stays for overdoses at hospitals throughout Arizona, according to the Arizona Department of Public Health.

There were 13, 168 such hospital visits in 2009 alone.