'Operation Tumbleweed' Goddard Announces Take-Down of Billion-Dollar Drug-Trafficking Organization

Task force busts cartel that smuggled two million pounds of marijuana into U.S.

Phoenix, Ariz. Dec. 23, 2008) Attorney General Terry Goddard today announced the break-up of the Garibaldi-Lopez Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO), a bi-national syndicate believed to have smuggled up to 400,000 pounds of marijuana annually from Mexico into the United States since 2003.

Fifty-nine individuals were indicted Monday and 39 arrested on felony charges relating to drug trafficking as a result of Operation Tumbleweed. This year-long investigation was conducted by a task force comprised of the Phoenix Police Department, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Department of Public Safety (DPS), Border Patrol, Attorney Generals Office, Customs Border Protection Air and Marine and the Pinal County Sheriffs Office.

The investigation, indictments and arrests constitute one of the largest take-downs of a drug-smuggling organization in Arizona history in terms of the volume of drugs and scope of operations. The total of up to two million pounds of marijuana that the Garibaldi-Lopez DTO transported from Mexico to stash houses in Phoenix was ultimately sold across the U.S. It carried a wholesale bulk value estimated to be $1 billion.

Operation Tumbleweed is an historic achievement in the fight against violent border smuggling syndicates, Goddard said. Trafficking across our southern border is the organized crime threat of the 21st century. To secure our border and protect our communities, law enforcement must work together, such as we did here, to go after the head of the monster. I will continue to partner with law enforcement at all levels to choke off the cartels fund sources, attack their smuggling routes and dismantle their organizations from the top down for as long as it takes to rid Arizona of this scourge.

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