Law enforcement officials say the arrests strike a blow to the cartel’s ability to import drugs from Mexico and use the U.S. as a base to traffic drugs into Europe.

“The international aspect of this case reminds us that to be effective, we must fight the war on drugs collectively, and across borders,” Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said at a news conference in Atlanta, where 43 people were arrested. “Too many communities, here and abroad, have been damaged by the drugs and violence associated with these cartels.”

The most recent arrests, which took place Tuesday and Wednesday, are part of an ongoing investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) into the Gulf Cartel. Ten of the people arrested in Italy and several in New York have been linked by Italian authorities to ‘Ndrangheta, a group whose domination of the Italian underworld has reportedly eclipsed that of the Sicilian Mafia.

In the past 15 months, more than 200 federal, state, local and international law enforcement agencies have arrested 500 cartel members and associates who have been charged with drug trafficking, kidnapping and attempted murder. The DEA said it also has seized $60 million, 18 tons of cocaine and 25 tons of marijuana.

The Justice Department also announced Wednesday the indictment of the three reputed leaders of the Gulf Cartel: Ezequiel Cardenas-Guillen, Heriberto Lazcano-Lazcano and Jorge Eduardo Costilla-Sanchez. They have not been apprehended and are thought to be in Mexico.

DEA officials said the Gulf Cartel is one of the two largest drug cartels in Mexico. There are seven major Mexican drug cartels that dominate the illicit-drug markets in the U.S. As much as 90 percent of the cocaine found in the U.S. originates from those cartels.

The Gulf Cartel controls the drug trade in northeast Mexico along the southwest Texas border. A DEA official said the cartel is particularly violent and has its own paramilitary group, called Los Zetas.

A 2007 report from the Congressional Research Service said that is the first time drug lords have had a personal paramilitary. Los Zetas is thought to have been formed by a group of Mexican military deserters in the 1990s and now includes Mexican law enforcement officials.

“The Zetas act as assassins for the Gulf Cartel. They also traffic arms, kidnap, and collect payments for the cartel on its drug routes,” according to the 2007 report to Congress. “Mexican law enforcement officials report that the Zetas have become an increasingly sophisticated, three-tiered organization with leaders and middlemen who coordinate contracts with petty criminals to carry out street work.”

The group has been linked to killings on both sides of the border, according to published reports.

U.S. law enforcement officials worry about increasing violence among Mexican drug cartels along the border. A confidential law enforcement report obtained by The Washington Times earlier this month warned it could result in increased violence against U.S. law enforcement officials.

Indictments released Tuesday include allegations that the Gulf Cartel’s reach has extended beyond Mexico.

Italian officials told Agence France-Presse that the Gulf Cartel worked with ‘Ndrangheta to traffic cocaine to Italy and further into Europe. Based in the Calabria region, or Italy’s toe, ‘Ndrangheta was able to sell cocaine bought from the Gulf Cartel at substantially higher prices in Europe.

At least some of the drug deals between the cartel and crime syndicate take place in the U.S. An indictment in New York accuses two men of buying cocaine there that was destined for Italy.

“This operation exemplifies the European vision of the international fight against drug trafficking.” said Nicola Gratteri, Italian public prosecutor for the Anti-mafia District Attorney’s Office of Reggio Calabria, Italy.

DEA arrests 175 drug-smuggle suspects – Ben Conery – The Washington Times – Thursday, September 18, 2008 – This story was found at: http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/18/dea-operation-nets-175-drug-smuggle-suspects/

US and Italian police seized 175, some of them picked up in Italy’s Reggio Calabria region, where the N’drangheta mafia run the cocaine trade.

Other suspects were arrested in Mexico and Guatemala.

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey said the arrests came after a 15-month investigation into the Gulf cartel.

The cartel is already believed to have links to organised crime in Italy.

It is suspected of importing and distributing tonnes of drugs from Latin America into the US.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency said three alleged cartel leaders had been indicted.

Italian police say the coordinated investigation, Operation Solare, has proved to be one of its biggest operations against the mafia in recent years, and one of their most successful.

The N’drangheta is notoriously secretive and ruthless, characteristics which have protected its drug-trafficking hegemony until now, the BBC’s Emma Wallis reports from Rome.

‘Massive assault’
The US and Italian charges cover various crimes, including trafficking of cocaine and marijuana, kidnap charges, attempted murder, conspiracy to use a firearm in a violent crime and conspiracy to kill and kidnap in a foreign country.

Mr Mukasey said it was a “massive assault” on the drug cartel, and praised the international co-operation.

The suspects detained in the US were arrested in a dozen states, including 43 people picked up in Atlanta, Georgia.

Nicola Gratteri, the Italian public prosecutor for the anti-mafia district attorney’s office of Reggio Calabria, said: “This operation exemplifies the European vision of the international fight against drug-trafficking.”

More than 16,000kg (35,000lb) of cocaine, 450kg of methamphetamine, 9kg of heroin, 23,300kg of marijuana, 176 vehicles and 167 weapons have been seized.

Approximately $60.1m (£33m) in US currency was also taken.

Scores held in global drug bust – BBC – 17 September 2008 – This story was found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7622099.stm

The headline in The New York Times that morning in 1984 was macabre, if unintentionally hilarious: “Unknown Arm of Sicilian Mafia Is Uncovered in the United States.”

The arm in question was not a body part but rather an overseas cell of the Italian criminal underworld operating alongside its better-known American counterpart — the Bonanno family in Brooklyn. Through neighborhood fronts around the country, the Italians had been masterminding the billion-dollar heroin pipeline that became known as the Pizza Connection.

What Americans didn’t know at the time was that five years earlier a pair of F.B.I. agents operating out of a hole-in-the-wall on Queens Boulevard had stumbled on the trail that led to the cell — and to a storied Italian-American law enforcement partnership that eventually destroyed the invincibility of the Mafia on both sides of the ocean and built a sturdy alliance that continues to this day.

Now, law enforcement experts wonder if there are lessons that can be applied to the escalating crisis in Mexico, where close to 500 police officers and soldiers have died at the hands of warring drug gangs since 2006. Is there something in the way the Americans and Italians worked together that could be applied to a partnership with the Mexicans? Certainly it is in the interest of the United States to seek such an alliance to stop the flow of drugs, guns and crime across the border, just as the Italian alliance helped stop that flow across the Atlantic. Indeed, President Bush has been pushing Congress to approve the first $500 million installment of a crime-fighting aid package to Mexico. Last week, American border governors met in Mexico with President Felipe Calderón to rally support for the effort and praise him for focusing on the drug lords.

And for its part, Mexico, struggling with a problem that seems to get bloodier and more intractable with each passing week, might well benefit from the expertise and experience of American law enforcement.

But the hurdles are high. Trust was a cornerstone of the American-Italian collaboration, and as hard as that trust was to gain, it could be even harder to achieve closer to home. With the trust built, though, the Italian collaboration thrived. For a start, investigators on both sides shared crucial intelligence. Equally crucially, Americans conducted operations that the Italian police lacked the legal authority to do in their own country — making drug buys, for example, and eavesdropping and conducting electronic surveillance. Perhaps most important, the Americans were able to guard endangered informers in the Federal Witness Protection Program.

In some ways, the Mexicans are ahead of where the Italians started, said Pino Arlacchi, an Italian sociologist and former senator who devised Italy’s most effective weapon against the mob, the D.I.A., or Direzione Investigativa Antimafia. Even into the 1980’s, Mr. Arlacchi said, the Italian government knew little about the shadowy Cosa Nostra. The enemy the Mexicans are fighting is not so entrenched and impenetrable as the Sicilian Mafia was, said Mr. Arlacchi, who served in the 1990’s as United Nations under secretary general for drug control. Rather, he said, the Mexicans face a fragmented and loose confederation of heavily armed feuding gangs with a propensity for public killings unmatched by the Mafia. That makes them more dangerously unpredictable, yes, but also, in theory, easier to overcome.

“The things we’re seeing in Mexico today, we saw the same glimmers in Italy” — the beginnings of a crusade — said Charlie Rooney, recalling the days when he and his F.B.I. partner, Carmine Russo, puzzled over the brazen assassination of the fearsome Bonanno family boss Carmine Galante, in the backyard of an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn’s Bushwick section in 1979.

Five years and millions of agent-hours later, the trail had led to a worldwide money laundering empire; a fugitive Sicilian boss of bosses, Gaetano Badalamenti, in Spain; one of the largest drug trafficking rings ever exposed; and the discovery of the franchise of the Sicilian Mafia in America.

It would take similar patience also in Mexico, said Mr. Rooney, now a private investigator in Virginia. “You have to have the will to fight and identify those you can work with.”

The last was a tall order at the time, particularly when it came to partnerships in Italy, said Tom Sheer, who as assistant F.B.I. director in New York was Agent Rooney’s boss. Italian officials, with some reason, were widely distrusted as corrupt. And the F.B.I. was not known for its generosity with colleagues, acknowledged Mr. Sheer, now a security consultant in Florida. “We were the catchers,” he said. “They pitched, we caught.”

The Americans were indeed difficult partners, said Mr. Arlacchi, then an academic studying the Mafia and later an Italian government adviser. “We considered the Americans arrogant,” he recalled. “They just wanted to get information, not give. We gave them everything and they said, ‘Thank you very much.’ ”

The resentment turned to alarm, Mr. Arlacchi said, when American agents started operating in Italy, making undercover drug buys — forbidden to the Italian police. At one point, he said, Giovanni Falcone, Italy’s leading investigative magistrate and anti-Mafia champion, threatened to arrest the Americans. But relations turned around after Judge Falcone and his wife, who was also a judge, and three bodyguards were assassinated in the bombing of their motorcade near Palermo in May 1992. Weeks later, his successor, Paolo Borsellino, was blown up.

“We told the Americans there was no reason not to trust us,” Mr. Arlacchi said. “We were risking our lives.”

Soon Italian and American investigators were working hand in hand, and the F.B.I. was protecting the most valuable Sicilian Mafia boss ever to turn snitch, Tommaso Buscetta, who became a star witness in New York.

In Mexico, a collaboration of sorts, albeit a looser one, already exists, which is a good start. Mexican officials say they enjoy their highest level of cooperation ever with the F.B.I. and Drug Enforcement Administration. Like the Italians, they say, they have created new legal tools patterned on American statutes to seize criminal assets, and they have asked the Americans to help protect crucial witnesses and extradite drug lords.

And like the Italians who sought to insulate the police from retaliation and corruption by flooding Sicily with outsiders, police officers from the north, the Mexicans have replaced local officers with 27,000 federal police officers and 30,000 troops. And they too have paid a price: of the 4,402 deaths from the violence since late 2006, at least 449 have been officers and soldiers, says the Mexican attorney general, Eduardo Medina-Mora.

Some experts, however, question whether the two nations have shed enough of their suspicion to reach the cohesion achieved by the United States and Italy. Mr. Calderón has bridled at American conditions that would tie aid to greater transparency on the Mexican military’s human rights record.

The Americans, in turn, the Mexicans say, need to do more to control their drug demand and the gun traffic across the border — weapons that are killing their police officers.

Some wonder too whether Mexico, struggling with poverty, can bring to bear the resources mobilized by a wealthier nation like Italy.

The way Mr. Medina-Mora, sees it, Mexico has no choice. “If we do not win it together,” he said, “we will lose it together.”

Ralph Blumenthal, a reporter for The New York Times, is the author of “Last Days of the Sicilians: The F.B.I.’s War Against the Mafia.”

What the Mexicans Might Learn From the Italians – By RALPH BLUMENTHAL – June 1, 2008 – The New York Times Company – http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/weekinreview/01blumenthal.html?_r=1&ref=americas&oref=slogin

SAN ANTONIO — A man who escaped from the Bexar County Jail in October – by walking out the front door – now has federal law enforcement on his tail.

The U.S. Marshals Service has added 28-year-old David Sauceda to its Top 15 Most Wanted List and added a large cash incentive for information leading to his capture.

Sauceda – who sheriff’s officials said has ties to the Mexican Mafia – allegedly shot and killed a man before running him over with a vehicle in 2006 and police alleged he duct-taped a woman during a home invasion six days later.

“David Sauceda is a very dangerous person,” Bexar County Sheriff Roland Tafolla said.

Sauceda is believed to be with his girlfriend, Angela Jaime, and her two sons, ages four and five and he has threatened to kill them if law enforcement confronts him, Lafayette Collins said.

“We have concerns he may harm the kids and the woman because of the people he’s harmed before,” he said.

Collins, with the U.S. Marshals Service, said his agency is offering $25,000 for information leading to his capture.

Mexican Mafia Member On Most Wanted List – POSTED: 6:33 pm CST December 20, 2007 – UPDATED: 10:30 am CST December 21, 2007 – http://www.ksat.com/news/14901956/detail.html

A reputed member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang was one of two men gunned down in a Pomona sports bar Tuesday night, authorities said.

Frankie “Frankie B” Buelna, 61, of Pomona was shot several times in the torso during a confrontation at Characters Sports Bar on 1st Street.

He was flown to County-USC Medical Center, where he died, said Pomona Police Sgt. Rick Baker.

Enrique Sanchez, 26, of Chino also was shot and killed at the bar. A third man believed to be a bystander was treated at a hospital for gunshot wounds and released, Baker said.

Baker and state prison gang investigators confirmed Buelna’s association with the Mexican Mafia.

Baker said two men entered the busy sports bar shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday and argued with Buelna. One of the two men pulled a gun and began firing, hitting Buelna and Sanchez. The men then fled in a gold car.

It was unclear Wednesday if Buelna and Sanchez knew each other.

The Mexican Mafia prison gang is known to order Latino street gangs to extort cash, or “tax,” drug dealers in their neighborhoods and funnel the proceeds to Mafia members.

Buelna was reputed to control the activities of Latino gangs from Pomona to Azusa. San Gabriel Valley gang members interviewed by The Times claimed they taxed drug dealers in their areas and sent part of the proceeds to Buelna.

In 2006, he was one of 57 gang members arrested as part of a sweep against Pomona’s 12th Street Sharkeys, a gang with close ties to the Mexican Mafia. The arrests came after the killing of California Highway Patrol Officer Thomas Steiner by one of the gang’s new recruits.

It was unclear Wednesday how that case had been resolved or when Buelna had returned to the streets.

Baker said detectives still knew of no motive for the killing and didn’t know if Buelna’s association with the Mexican Mafia, or drug taxation of street gangs, played a part in his death.

Reputed prison gangster killed – By Sam Quinones, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer – November 15, 2007 – http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mafia15nov15,1,2990471.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true

The person who federal authorities say is the Mexican Mafia’s No. 2 man in the Coachella Valley appeared on drug-trafficking charges in a Riverside federal courtroom Monday after months on the lam.

The arrest comes as part of a federal crackdown on the prison-based gang that is suspected of controlling drug traffic outside the walls, including in the Coachella Valley.

Mexican authorities arrested Tony Gonzales-Rodriguez Jr. on Friday in Mexicali, where he was living illegally as a U.S. citizen and worked at a painting business, according to the FBI. He was extradited to this country over the weekend.

Gonzales-Rodriguez is the last of 14 defendants to be arrested in the case against the Coachella Valley franchise of the prison-based gang.

The other 13 were arrested in April and are awaiting trial. Gonzales-Rodriguez pleaded not guilty in federal court in Riverside. He is being held without bail.

Such sweeps have also netted arrests in San Diego, where federal prosecutors are charging gang members already in prison with racketeering.

An Indio man was sentenced last week to life in federal prison after being convicted of running drugs between California and Fargo, N.D.

Alberto Chachia and nine other defendants have been sentenced in North Dakota’s crackdown on the Mexican Mafia, according to a Department of Justice news release.

The gang started in California prisons about 50 years ago and is also known as “La Eme,” which translates to “The M.” It uses its power over prison life to control Hispanic gang members who are not incarcerated, according to court documents.

Local gangs pay a portion of proceeds from illegal activities, including drug sales. The money, which helps pay for protection in prisons to other gangs, is based on the premise that all gang members will end up in prison and that the money goes toward insurance for a safe time there, according to court documents.

Local leader Jose Chavez Huerta, considered the No. 1 drug trafficker in the area, and Gonzales-Rodriguez paid the so-called taxes to higher-ranking members who are in the prison system.

“It’s clear that in recent years members of the Mexican Mafia have been exerting significant control over some street gangs,” said Thom Mrozek, U.S. attorney’s office spokesman. “The Coachella Valley case illustrates the relationship from a member of the Eme to the gang all the way down to the activities of street-level drug dealers.”

Gonzales-Rodriguez is accused of controlling the sale and distribution of narcotics in the Inland area and collecting “taxes” for the Mexican Mafia. He is also accused of directing most of the gang-related violence in the area.

Huerta and Gonzales-Rodriguez would negotiate prices and quantities of drugs with suppliers. Gonzales-Rodriguez oversaw methamphetamine distribution at homes in Thermal and Indio.

Huerta, who was arrested earlier, is accused of trafficking in methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine.

A series of confidential informants and recorded phone conversations led authorities to the arrests, according to an affidavit filed by the U.S. attorney’s office.

In one conversation, Gonzales-Rodriguez told another of the defendants to bury the drugs underground because they believed police were on their way.

In another conversation, Huerta was heard threatening to kill a deputy who had pulled over a car with drugs in it. The deputy was alerted and left the area safely, according to court documents.

The main gang leadership is based in prison and Mrozek said sending more members back to prison will not deter authorities from continuing to prosecute the gang.

“Our job is to target criminal enterprises. Just because a guy was incarcerated for 20 years and we’re going to put him back for the rest of his life where he may engage in additional activity doesn’t mean we aren’t going to do it,” Mrozek said.

Man pleads not guilty in crackdown on Mexican Mafia – 10:00 PM PDT on Monday, October 29, 2007 – By SONJA BJELLAND and JOHN ASBURY – The Press-Enterprise – http://www.pe.com/localnews/sbcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_C_mafia30.3ddafd3.html

Jessie Munoz and Edna Davis, both 46, Mary Lou Vega, 32, and Angela Esparza, 36, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to conduct enterprise affairs through a pattern of racketeering activities.

Sentencing is scheduled Sept. 14 before U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw.

A fifth defendant, 29-year-old Robert Romero, pleaded guilty last Wednesday to the same charge and will be sentenced Sept. 7.

With their pleas, each defendant admitted that the Mexican Mafia is involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances.

The defendants also acknowledged the manner in which the Mexican Mafia is able to exert control over illegal activities within the prison system and on the streets of Southern California through its connection to various Latino street gangs in San Diego, prosecutors said.

The large investigating team included a number of agencies, including the Escondido, Carlsbad and Oceanside police departments and the North County Regional Gang Task Force.

Four plead guilty in Le Eme racketeering case – By: North County Times wire services – http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/06/26/news/sandiego/21_35_236_25_07.txt

The events took place in Chihuahua, Baja California, New Leon, Sinaloa and Michoacan, where army soldiers and the Preventive Federal Police (PFP) are deployed.

The report cites four police victims, five wounded and 10 detained as a result of the shootout in the area around the Mexico del Valle University in Aguas Calientes, considered one of the most peaceful territories in Mexico.

Meanwhile Guerrero s government announced a second step of the federal operation implemented in that area while in Chihuahua capital over 1500 weapons were destroyed, among them grenades and riffles.

Over one thousand soldiers from the PFP and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrived in Guerrero while the Army will work in the more wild areas.

ef abo crc mf – Mexico, Feb 16 (Prensa Latina) – http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B5569BE60-3056-44DB-ADB0-BE582055EE7B%7D)&language=EN

Calderon has largely relied on federal police and soldiers for a series of massive anti-crime sweeps in several Mexican states, but he has said future efforts will need to rely more on local police.

“In order to win the war on crime, it is indispensable that we work in a united manner,” Calderon told a national gathering of state governors and top public safety officials.

His comments came three days after his administration extradited four alleged drug lords and 11 other suspects to the United States. He said he wouldn’t give up the battle.

“This is a permanent fight in which, unfortunately, many have lost their lives,” said Calderon. “We are fighting without pause so that these sacrifices will not have been in vain.”

Unruly prisons, untrained or corrupt local police, and citizens’ distrust of police are all major obstacles that Calderon faces in his crackdown on drug violence that includes executions, gunbattles and beheadings.

He said on Monday that he hopes to use the federal operations to strengthen local police, although in some cities, like Tijuana, one of federal agents’ first jobs has been to investigate local forces for alleged corruption or violence.

“We will extend and fortify joint operations against organized crime, with the aim of having these operations result, in the end, in leaving behind strengthened local police forces,” Calderon said.

He proposed better training, equipment, vetting and intelligence work, including a unified national criminal information data center.

“The idea is for all police forces in Mexico local, state and, of course, federal to comply with standards that will ensure that the public can trust our police,” he said.

By MARK STEVENSON The Associated Press Monday, January 22, 2007; 9:01 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/22/AR2007012201215.html