Authorities break up drug-smuggling operation passing through Tohono O’Odham Nation

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By TRAVIS GRABOW
Cronkite News Service

PHOENIX (Monday, Oct. 26) _ A joint effort by several law enforcement agencies shut down a large drug-smuggling operation and will help authorities better understand how to fight trafficking near the border and across the Tohono O’Odham Nation, Attorney General Terry Goddard said Monday.

“We believe that by this action we have literally taken out the entire organization, from the people who carried the drugs to the people who organized it to the ones who basically rode shotgun and protected the operation as it went forward,” Goddard said.

The eight-month investigation resulted in 21 indictments and as many as 12 arrests earlier this month, including that of alleged ringleader Roberto Hernandez of Arizona City, along with the seizure of more than half a million dollars of property so far.

The operation, which officials believe had been running for about three years, recruited individuals to carry backpacks containing up to 100 pounds of marijuana across the U.S.-Mexico border.

They crossed in the Tohono O’odham reservation, which stretches from the border nearly to Casa Grande in the desert west of Tucson.

In most cases, they took the drugs on foot all the way to Pinal County, where they were stored and distributed. Goddard said the organization moved an estimated 60,000 pounds of marijuana per year.

“I think the bottom line is that we can take effective action against it, or we can take ineffective, high-profile action,” Goddard said. “Today, what we have is an example of hard, quiet law enforcement work that puts the details together and results in a single takedown of a major link in the chain of bringing drugs into the United States.”

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said the investigation was important because it helps officials understand how drug traffickers are changing the way they operate in response to recent enforcement efforts. For example, drug traffickers used to take up to 1,000 pounds of marijuana in vehicles in a single trip but in this operation almost exclusively carried drugs by foot to avoid detection.

Elizabeth Kempshall, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge in Phoenix, said enforcement is changing as well.

“Taking out this organization is significant in the fact that they know they cannot hide like they used to hide,” she said. “They cannot move from one jurisdiction to the next because law enforcement, in a coordinated effort, we’re sharing intelligence, we’re sharing techniques, and we’re combining our efforts to take these guys down.”

“All we can say is that we have gotten to a much higher level of knowledge and understanding of what it is they do and how they do it,” Goddard said. “And we’ve got a coordinated group of law enforcement who are taking away the places where they’ve been comfortable, places where they’ve been able to hide.”

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PHOTOS: Click thumbnails to see full-resolution images.

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Attorney General Terry Goddard discusses an operation in which several law enforcement agencies cracked down on a drug-smuggling operation through the Tohono O’Odham Nation. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeau is at right. (Cronkite News Service Photo by Travis Grabow)

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Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeau discusses an operation in which several law enforcement agencies cracked down on a drug-smuggling operation through the Tohono O’Odham Nation. (Cronkite News Service Photo by Travis Grabow)