41 people charged in massive drug trafficking arrests linked to 'major cartel'

from the bios of halisco and maaak Mexico the halisco new generation cartel casts a dark shadow that extends far beyond the borders of a single nation and into the streets and communities of places like Houston and Beyond the cjng is one of the most powerful and dangerous criminal organizations in Mexico characterized by a business model of extreme violence and trafficking in the most deadly of substances cocaine heroin meth and fenel my name is alumar hamdani and I am the United States Attorney

for the southern district of Texas and I'm here to announce the doj's next efforts to disrupt the CJ's activities a 50count indictment charging 41 people of drug trafficking in cocaine heroin meth and fenol as well as money laundering those charged are alleged to have sourced the drugs from Mexico smuggle the drugs from Mexico across the border into the southern mission of Texas into Houston and into places like Atlanta Pensacola new New Orleans Nashville and Chicago the charges allege that all

41 defendants operated under the overall control of the cjm G of the 41 defendants DEA un united states Marshall service and other law enforcement Partners have taken 20 defendants into custody over the course of the last week three were already in custody two have passed away and six remain at large including Ro zundo Mendoza of mitoan the main source of supply of the drug trafficking alleged in the indictment there are fugitives in Mexico in Houston and as far as La the arrests are a culminat

ion of a 63 Monon osad organized crime du drug enforcement task force investigation has spanned from early 20 19 to the present all charged all charged face life in federal prison as well as other penalties for other kinds of counts now I want to talk a little bit about the drugs the drugs that have been seized are 29 kg of cocaine 34 kg of heroin 550 kilos of meth and 22,600 pills laced with fanol if you ever heard the term one pill can kill when it comes to fanol 22,600 deadly pills in 2021 ov

er 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses with 66% of those deaths related to synthetic opioids like fany the cartel's ruthless pursuit of profit has come at the cost of countless young lives leaving families and communities across the country devastated the fight against the C cgj cjn dead deadly fenal trade remains an ongoing battle and I can tell you that battle requires every one of the people up here ATF HPD DEA United States Marshall service and the Gal Galviston PD it takes an all of

government approach to stem the tide of the cjn with that I'm going to turn it over to my good friend Danny KO with the DEA this is a very significant case for the City of Houston we work together as a team as one here from the city federal state and the US attorney's office to dominate this drug cartel and we have made a difference not only have we made a difference we saved lives by these individuals being arrested the drugs being taken off the street we have saved lives I want the citizens to

understand we're doing our part as a team as one to make the citizens of Houston safe howdy I'm T mik Lo Conor I'm the US Marshal of the southern district of Texas you probably heard this saying Justice is coming well I can assure you justice is here and here's a prime example of a collaboration of multi- agencies from local state and federal the Marshall service is well known for pursuant of fugitives I consider them predators to our society as whole and they are so good at doing this you see

the successes that we have Across the Nation in one of the collaborations that I have been a part of that has been in sync from the day one and it now shows the results I can only assure you that we will continue to collaborate with the agencies here and make a difference in keeping our community safe and having assisting the law enforcement local law enforcement as well thank you thank you very much and I just want to say good afternoon to everyone um I just like everyone else extremely proud o

f our partnership um State local Federal um all of our partners and the US attorney's office the southern district City of Houston has got more support to me than anybody in the nation and I just want to thank you this is a five year over fivey year investigation a lot of work goes on U behind the scenes and I just want to thank everyone but I want to spell special thanks to those Task Force officers the men and women are on the front line is really doing the dangerous work I want to commend the

m for what they do but a mess a quick message to any cartel or any organized criminal activity we stand strong here and I'm very proud of it and we'll continue to stand strong um there some outstanding um defendants out there uh we're going to get them as well and this is a message to everyone in this city in this region uh the partnership that we have is second to none and we're strong and we're moving forward and I just want to thank you uh for your support um and everybody else that's that's

standing with me today and we'll continue to move forward in this region um to put bad people in jail and make our city our region safer so thanks for what everybody's done uh in this operation in this big investigation so thank you thank you Chief we're happy to take some questions as it relates to this operation Operation known as operation rain maker any questions yes do we know the immigration status of uh any of these fugitives that have been captured so the fugitives who have not well the

fugitives who have not been captured yes we do know the immigration status um each one is different some of them are citizens some of them are citizens of Mexico uh but yes that'll be part of kind of the package we put together when we uh do our uh we go out and we we try to apprehend fugitives other than drugs do we know if they're involved in uh in any immigrant smuggling at the border so this indictment is about drug smuggling and and and as well as um moneya laundering and that's what I want

to focus on um we will of course our investigations always continue and we look at all different aspects of every crime that's out there thank you sir any reason to believe that any of the fugitives are in Southeast Texas right now some of them are from Houston yeah absolutely and you know at this point um you know we're actively looking for these fugitives which is why I've got them up here but if you look at the actual slid you'll see in there um some of them are actually in Houston or Housto

n or Mexico one of the things about the cjng you'll see in this because you've got the cjng is they're all they all work for the cjng they're all under the control of the CJ you'll see some folks going back and forth to Mexico and into Houston yeah do you have more information on how exactly they were uh trafficking these drugs what their operation looked like right now I want to what what I can tell you is what's in the indictment which is they smuggle the drugs across the border into the south

ern district of Texas and they go to Houston that would be a hub and then they send it to other places around the country of course using a variety of individuals many of them been what else can we learn about this cartel specifically about their operations and the fact that they're here in Houston and operating here in the states that's a great question what it tells you right now is the cjng is not just confined to maawa or to halisco it's in Houston its folks are in Houston its folks are in o

ther parts of the country and that is the big message we want to send is that the helis New Generation cartel isn't just some far off entity they're in the streets of Houston they're in our communities um and these folks were all under the control of that cartel let you say that um um yes the people take it into custody I mean is there any indication were they in one like cell one group are these multiple groups that are under the control of this cartel that's a great question so uh the cart fir

st of all they're all they're all under the control of the cartel uh the very first individual uh that individual number one um and I'll tell you his name real quick before I forget um zudio Mendoza he is the main source of Supply when it comes to these drugs coming across the border into the southern district of Texas uh but all of them were under the control of the CJ but to the to the question of was this one we have we have 41 people here who are charged 23 taken into custody were they all i

n one group working together are these like different factions under the control of the cartel count one of the indictment is a conspiracy that involves all of all 40 are you guys adding El in this indictment say again are you guys adding ELO in this our our investigation always continues and so I can't talk about what we've got or what what that investigation looks like but I can tell you we are Vigilant we are constantly looking at um additional charges or additional targets why announc today

huh why announced today it's it's been five years you're still working this right so first of all I think it ISC incredibly important to educate the community here in Houston announ of the cjng and the cartel itself and what it does but secondly uh the indictment was just recently unsealed last week and last week is when we started arresting individuals and so last week um I think we is when we arrested about 20 individuals we thought now is a good time to sit down and talk of course what we can

't do is talk about a case while it's still under seal once it got unsealed we made the move to stop talking about it and to educate Community when were they arrested when were they arrested last week um o over the coming days so they've been they've been coming in waves some of them turned themselves in some of them we've captured and they've had hearings throughout the last week uh a main prosecutor on the case has been busy dealing with detention hearings for the past week and a half where oh

where oh Houston um I think I'll tell you exactly um I believe we had some come from Denver from Colorado but most of them have been here in Houston um and and and along the border we've captured most of you mentioned that two of these defendants have uh passed away I guess since they were charged do you have any other details on that no other details all right thank you everybody appreciate your time thank you