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Mexican drug cartels infiltrating colleges and high school campuses in America

By Michael Webster: Investigative Reporter May 7, 2008, 2:00 PM PDT

In a recent drug bust at the San Diego State University Federal agents and SDSU police culminated a yearlong investigation into drug dealing around campus and found it to be more sophisticated, more pervasive and more dangerous and far reaching than they expected or have seen before. These arrests coincided with the first anniversary of a female student freshman's cocaine-related death.

K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune

SDSU President Stephen Weber spoke Tuesday at a news conference in which authorities said 96 suspects were arrested on drug-related charges. Among the items seized were 4 pounds of cocaine, 50 pounds of marijuana and three handguns.

According to local newspaper reports ninety-six suspects, including 75 SDSU students, have been arrested on drug-related charges as a result of the undercover operation, launched after Jenny Poliakoff, 19, was found dead in her off-campus apartment after a night of celebration.

One of the main suspects in this international drug investigation is illegal alien Omar Castaneda, a gang member from Pomona with ties to the Mexican Tijuana drug cartels, officials said

Castaneda, 36, after his arrest he was arraigned in San Diego Superior Court on charges of possession of cocaine for sale. He is suspected of being a major link between drugs flowing into California from Tijuana and sales at SDSU and other California campuses.

SCOTT LINNETT / Union-Tribune

Omar Castaneda (left) and Patrick Hawley were arraigned Tuesday in San Diego Superior Court on drug-related charges.

The violent Tijuana drug cartel also known as the Arellano-Felix organization (AFO) has a firm and deadly hold on all drug trafficking activities in Baja and San Diego California. Their reach controls drug smuggling in Sinaloa, Jalisco, Michoacan, Chiapas and Baja, and has strong links to San Diego, California. The AFO dispenses an estimated $1 million weekly in bribes to Mexican officials, police and Mexican army officers and maintains its own-well armed, trained, paramilitary security force. The DEA considers the AFO the most violent and aggressive of the Mexican border cartels. Here is the DEA's background profile on the AFO and its leaders. Click on or google: Dangerous Mexican Cartel Gangs

The SDSU Police Department approached the DEA and county narcotics task-force officials for assistance in December of 07, when it became clear that the drug trafficking on campus was widespread and involved Mexican organized crime drug cartels and their gang members and they feared that it far out striped their ability to handle a potentially very complicated international drug trafficking investigation.

“We were coming in contact with more types of narcotics,” SDSU Police Chief John Browning said. “If you're serious about this, you have to go to someone who has the resources to take it to the next level.”

As the investigation was unfolding, the campus dealt with another drug-related death. An autopsy showed that Mesa College student Kurt Baker died Feb. 24 at an SDSU fraternity from oxycodone and alcohol poisoning.

“We know there's drug use in college . . . but when you have an organization that's actually based out of a college area, that's a whole different thing,” said Garrison Courtney of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “You just don't see that.”

Research indicates that lucrative university and high school campuses are fertile markets for drug dealers. Mexican drug cartels have known this for years and are believed to have infiltrated many of America’s school campuses through cartel gang members. Federal authorities point to the Mexican drug cartels who are ultimately responsible for border violence by having cemented ties to street and prison gangs like Barrio Azteca on the U.S. side. Azteca and other U.S. gangs retail drugs that they get from Mexican cartels and Mexican gangs.

Mexican gangs run their own distribution networks in the United States, and they produce most of the methamphetamine used north of the border. They have even bypassed the Colombians several times to buy cocaine directly from producers in Bolivia, Peru and even Afghanistan. These same gangs often work as cartel surrogates or enforcers on the U.S. side of the border. Intelligence suggests Los Zetas . Click on or google: They're known as "Los Zetas have hired members of various gangs at different times including, El Paso gang Barrio Azteca, Mexican Mafia, Texas Syndicate, MS-13, and Hermanos Pistoleros Latinos to further their criminal endeavors.

Authorities on both sides of the border believe many of these gang members and other surrogates of the powerful Mexican drug cartels have infiltrated and operate openly on many American school campuses particularly in states bordering Mexico including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

One suspect, Phi Kappa Psi member Michael Montoya, worked as a community-service officer on campus and would have earned a master's degree in homeland security next month. Another student arrested on suspicion of possessing 500 grams of cocaine and two guns was a criminal-justice major.

Authorities identified 22 SDSU students as drug dealers who sold to undercover agents. At least 17 others allegedly supplied the drugs. The rest of the suspects apparently bought or possessed illegal drugs.

Authorities said students from seven fraternities were involved in the drug ring, which operated openly across campus.

Evidence showed that “most of the members were aware of organized drug dealing occurring from the fraternity houses,” officials said. Drug agents confirmed that “a hierarchy existed for the purposes of selling drugs for money.”

Authorities singled out the Theta Chi fraternity as a hub of cocaine dealing.

One alleged dealer, Theta Chi member Kenneth Ciaccio, sent text messages to his “faithful customers” announcing that cocaine sales would be suspended over an upcoming weekend because he and his “associates” planned to be in Las Vegas, authorities said.

The same message posted “sale” prices on cocaine if transactions were completed before the dealers left San Diego.

Until yesterday, Ciaccio was featured on SDSU's Web site promoting the Compact for Success program, which guarantees certain Sweetwater Union High School District students admission to the university if they maintain a B average.

SDSU President Stephen Weber said that even when campus police decided to ask for help from other authorities, “it wasn't clear that we were going to end up at the point where we were today.”

Ramon Mosler, chief of the narcotics division of the District Attorney's Office in San Diego California, said the investigation could have happened on any college campus in America. Mosler said his unit joined in because the university took the unusual step of asking for help.

“Oftentimes administrations don't want us to do this stuff, and that's unfortunate,” Mosler said. “I think it's important to do this every now and then to wake people up. It raises everyone's awareness to the dangers of drugs.”

According to the search-warrant affidavit, Thomas Watanapun sold $400 worth of cocaine to undercover agents from a Lexus sedan registered to his father in Los Angeles.

Authorities said some of the suspects made little effort to conceal their activities.

Dealers “weren't picky about who they sold to,” Mosler said.

Also arraigned was Patrick Hawley, 20, who was arrested on suspicion of armed robbery and selling cocaine near the campus, officials said.

According to a 2007 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, nearly half of the nation's 5.4 million full-time college students abuse drugs or alcohol at least once a month.

Law enforcement officials in San Diego say street gangs here continue to have strong ties to organized crime groups in Tijuana. A gunman killed recently in an attack in Tijuana is believed to belong to both a gang in Barrio Logan and the Arellano Felix Drug Cartel. KPBS Reporter Amy Isackson reported.

For years, Mexican drug trafficking groups have recruited U.S. gang members to do everything from smuggle drugs to murder. Tijuana's Arellano Felix Drug Cartel and a gang from San Diego's Barrio Logan neighborhood go back at least 15 years.

Many students enrolled in American schools are believed members of gangs many are now coming from the U.S. Military as they rotate out of the services. Many are veterans who where encouraged to join the U.S Military for combat training by Mexican cartels and gang leaders. The cartels are confronting police and the army on a regular bases in Mexico and hope that these same tactics will soon pay off and enable them to confront the U.S Police in a much more professional, effective and dangerous ways.

Richard Valdemar, a 30-year-veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, travels the country lecturing and teaching police about military-trained gang members. Valdemar and other gang experts say gangs are encouraging members to join the military for training to learn urban warfare and learn the latest weaponry.

The military's current emphasis on urban warfare plays into the street-fighting mentality of gangs, experts say.

"When individuals go into the military, they are taught how to use weapons, defensive tactics, and the use of a lot of sophisticated techniques," said LaRae Quy, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "They take that back on the streets with them. This is a legitimate concern for law enforcement."

Valdemar cites former Camp Pendleton Marine Sgt. Jesse Quintanilla as just one high-profile example. A military court sentenced Quintanilla to death in 1996 for killing his executive officer and wounding his commanding officer.

When interrogators asked Quintanilla why he committed the crimes, Quintanilla said it was for "his brown brothers," according to Valdemar. Quintanilla showed them a tattoo on his chest with the word "Sureno," a reference to a California gang, according to court documents.

Army recruiting headquarters in Washington, D.C., dismiss the claims as urban myth. An Army spokesman said army background checks are extensive and weed out gang members.

The ARELLANO-Felix Organization (AFO), often referred to as the Tijuana Cartel, is one of the most powerful and aggressive drug trafficking organizations operating from Mexico; it is undeniably the most violent. More than any other major trafficking organization from Mexico, this organization extends its tentacles directly from high-echelon figures in the law enforcement and judicial systems in Mexico to street-level individuals in United States cities.

The AFO is responsible for the transportation, importation and distribution of multi-ton quantities of cocaine, marijuana, as well as large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine, into the United States from Mexico. The AFO operates primarily in the Mexican states of Sinaloa (their birth place), Jalisco, Michoacan, Chiapas, and Baja California South and North. From Baja, the drugs enter California, the primary point of embarkation into the United States distribution network.

The ARELLANO family, composed of seven brothers and four sisters, inherited the organization from Miguel Angel FELIX-Gallardo upon his incarceration in Mexico in 1989 for his complicity in the murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena. Alberto Benjamin ARELLANO-Felix assumed leadership of the family structured criminal enterprise and provides a businessman's approach to the management of drug trafficking operations.

The AFO also maintains complex communications centers in several major cities in Mexico and the U.S. to conduct electronic espionage and counter surveillance measures against law enforcement entities. The organization employs radio scanners and equipment capable of intercepting both hard line, radio and cellular phones to ensure the security of AFO operations. In addition to technical equipment, the AFO maintains caches of sophisticated automatic weaponry secured from a variety of international sources. Click on or google: Mexican drug cartels and terrorist are recruiting for more fighters to train as soldiers

A Joint Task Force composed of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been established in San Diego, California to target the AFO; the Task Force is investigating AFO operations in southern California and related regional investigations which track drug transportation, distribution and money laundering activities of the AFO throughout the United States. Click on or google: Dangerous Mexican/U.S. Criminal Enterprises Operating Along the Mexican border

Invader involved in SDSU drug scheme

Drug bust: Students arrested at SDSU

Sources:

DEA

FBI

San Diego sheriff’s office

San Diego Tribune

Frontline

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