Feds arrest 27 in L.A. County, 500 nationwide tied to powerful cartel
Federal agents arrested more than two dozen members of one of Mexico’s largest drug-trafficking cartels in Los Angeles County this week – part of a nationwide crackdown on the gang responsible for smuggling vast quantities of methamphetamines, heroin and fentanyl into this country, authorities said on Wednesday.
Drug Enforcement Administration officials said the U.S.-based members of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, or CJNG, sent back machine guns they purchased in America to their bosses across the border, contributing to continuing violence in Mexico.
More than 500 CJNG members were arrested across the U.S. in the last week during a six-month investigation the agency calls “Project Python,” the DEA said during a downtown Los Angeles press conference. Agents investigated the gang with the help of wiretaps and undercover operatives.
Among those were 27 in L.A. County, some as recently as a few hours before the announcement. DEA agents had served search warrants at multiple L.A. County locations, including in Sun Valley and North Hollywood, starting late Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning.
For years, CJNG and its purported leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho,” have been the target of U.S. and Mexican officials seeking to tamp down on the gang. In their statement, the DEA officials described CJNG as “one of the fastest-growing transnational criminal organizations in Mexico, and among the most prolific methamphetamine producers in the world.”
CJNG, they said, “is responsible for a significant proportion of drugs entering the United States, and elevated levels of violence in Mexico.”
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In addition to the arrests, DEA agents – in L.A. County alone – seized 1,600 pounds of meth and 150 pounds combined of heroin, fentanyl and other drugs. Nationwide, federal authorities took possession of $20 million in cash and at least dozens of guns.
DEA Special Agent Bill Bodner, who heads the Los Angeles division, said CJNG has been flooding the market with meth, more addictive than other drugs such as cocaine.
The Los Angeles region is one of CJNG’s major drug-distribution hubs in the U.S.
The Jalisco cartel is also known to operate stash houses in the Inland Empire, including one that agents previously raided in Rancho Cucamonga, U.S. Attorney Nicola Hanna said.
Last month, DEA agents also seized more than 2,000 pounds of meth from a stash house and storage facility in San Bernardino County, though Bodner declined to say whether that operation was tied to CJNG.
Officials have been looking for Cervantes since at least 2011. His son – CJNG’s second in command – and daughter were both arrested last month. The DEA has a $10 million reward waiting for whoever helps it collar Cervantes.
Cervantes lived in San Francisco for a time and it’s where his children were born, Bodner said, adding that his son and daughter moved to Mexico to help their father operate their enterprise in the Mexican state of Jalisco.
Investigators believe Cervantes is still in Mexico, Bodner said.
In recent years, Cervantes has been accused by authorities of expanding the territory and control of CJNG in Mexico, with brutal acts, such as murdering rival gang members en masse and ambushing local police officers.
Because of the organization’s stability, capturing Cervantes and toppling the enterprise is difficult, Bodner said: Unlike other cartels, CJNG does not have any internal clashes between factions, and Cervantes oversees a top-down leadership style, so there is no dispute of who is in charge.
Bodner drew a distinction between Cervantes and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the now-incarcerated former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, saying that Guzman operated with a lot of flash and did things that attracted attention to himself.
“We don’t have that with El Mencho,” Bodner said. “He’s just focused on how to make profit and how to traffic things differently to increase profit.”