A Southern California-based federal drug task force rounded up more than 57 members of three alleged Mexican drug organizations accused of smuggling cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin into the United States by hiding the drugs in PVC pipes concealed in tractor-trailer axles, according to federal prosecutors.
The investigation began in early 2011 and initially looked into a drug trafficking organization that transported the drugs from Mexico, via the Nogales, Ariz. border crossing, dropping them off at truck yards in South Gate and Wilmington, Calif.
The PVC pipes containing the drugs were then offloaded from the trucks and distributed to locations in Arizona; Los Angeles; and such California counties as Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino.
“The allegations here describe a wide-ranging conspiracy to exploit aspects of our nation’s trucking and transportation system and funnel enormous amounts of dangerous narcotics into this country,” André Birotte Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said in an Aug. 15 announcement.
Claude Arnold, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of Homeland Security Investigations, said, “Today, as a result of our collective enforcement efforts, we’ve literally knocked the wheels off of a highly sophisticated drug distribution scheme that had ties to at least five states.
“The criminal networks targeted in this case exploited one of the nation’s busiest transportation corridors to mask the movement of staggering amounts of contraband — the volume of methamphetamine being smuggled by these organizations is virtually unprecedented.”
