Exclusive: Mexican Drug Cartels in Atlanta

Atlanta's Hub of Highways Makes it a Crossroads for Drug Distribution

(CBS)  A nondescript house outside of Atlanta is part of America's greatest organized crime threat. CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports Drug Enforcement Administration agents say Mexican drug cartels are hiding in plain sight throughout the metro area.

From a closet inside the house, cops seize a shopping bag with a $250,000 in cash. Also seized: six pounds of methamphetamine, with a street value of another quarter-million dollars.

Four rival Mexican drug cartels have dug in along Atlanta's interlocking highways, a shipping link to the rest of America.

"I classify Atlanta as a strategic operations center for Mexican organized crime," said Rodney G. Benson, Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta DEA. "They were able to blend right in and establish metro Atlanta as that strategic trans-shipment point."

DEA Web site

For the last seven months, CBS News has followed Steve Whipple, a DEA field supervisor.

Tailing a suspect named Gilberto Alcaraz, he says Alcaraz represents, "a mid-level distributor."

For Alcaraz, it's a family business. CBS News footage shows his 13-year-old son settling a drug debt with a woman.

Gilberto's house is low-key considering that Whipple says he earns $50,000 a week.

Whipple said, "They're going to drive the beat-up pickup, and they're going to try to look like they're running a landscaping business."

Mexico's drug cartels are now the main suppliers in at least 230 U.S. cities, and dominate 70 percent of America's illegal drug market.

Just outside Atlanta, Gwinnett County is their new drug hub.

The District Attorney Danny Porter said, "We're finding them trans-shipping cocaine through Atlanta to Miami. So the days of cigarette boats and pastel suits - those are gone. I guess we're the new Miami Vice."

After nine weeks of surveillance, Whipple took down Alcaraz - searched his house, and made another arrest.

It's one interruption, in the daily surge of drugs and cash flowing between Atlanta's quiet suburbs and Mexico's meanest streets.

[sam-kiley]

bonsoir
comme si ça ne leur suffisait a ces monstres de pourrir la vie des adolescents au mexique en leur vendant cette saleté.. voila qu'ils élargissent leur réseau de distribution a leur voisins aux states, et qui sait ailleurs peut etre
une maniére comme une autre d'investir..sauf que cette fois c'est dans le funébre....au revoir

[berlinfoto-2009]

Americans you need to educate yourselves.
There is a entire shelf in the library, of books that all will tell you that the Federal Police agencies started the drug problem so they could build themselves a larger police empire, and turn the U.S. in to a police state.
May I suggest that you read "THE POLITICS OF HEROIN" Written by Alfred W. McCoy, I realize that the book is long and Americans do not like to read, well tough. This one book is not enough, you will have to read many in order to see that my conclusion is correct. For a short assignment read just chapter 27, from the book "LEGACY OF ASHES", written by Tim Weiner.
You must then learn to think, for you will have to read, then add 2 + 2 and come up with the correct answer of 4.
The Federal Agencies have been microchipping individuals in order to entrap them in crime for over thirty years.

[legalizemj]

Georgia what are we going to do? We don't even have an active Norml chapter in this state!

Who knows the law, how do we force change?
How do we get our legislators to push through MMJ and decrim laws? How do we get them to put pressure on the federal government to do the same?

Stand up all you leaders, you men and women who can make this happen! Start a group in Georgia to bring about marijuana law reform and you will have THOUSANDS of members. People want safety, people want the cartels out. They will support you!

[legalizemj]

As a resident of Atlanta and a parent I am appalled at this danger the federal marijuana prohibition has put us in!

The prohibition was supposed to make us safer but the truth is it makes us significantly LESS safe! We must demand an end to the prohibition and the right to commercially produce and sell marijuana to adults.

This is the ONLY way we can drive the cartels out of our city. We MUST be given the ability to undercut the cartel's marijuana prices with legally-grown weed. According to the ONDCP two-thirds of the cartel's incomes come from selling marijuana in the U.S. When we undercut their prices we'll eliminate two-thirds of their incomes, and no business can survive that!

Georgia, stand up for the safety of your families! Demand an immediate end to the prohibition NOW!

[6591Hou]

America rejected Prohibition because legislating morality is not, and has never been, the American ideal of personal freedom. The drug war was another multi-generational attempt to legislate personal conduct that has failed ever since the 1930's, remember "Reefer Madness"?
Universal health-care may yet be the brick wall that the legalize drug effort runs up against, drug use/abuse carries it's own health costs and if illegal drugs were legalized those health costs would be out in the open.
The Mexican cartels also are into human traffic, so don't make the mistake of thinking they'll fold up if you make pot legal.

[scabbard2]

Amigo Arbusto had eight years in the big seat and did nothing, never mentioned it. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan are nothing compared to the vermin toadie Mexican swill that number in the millions, here in our country illegally. Now the replacement dud does nothing. Who is running or ruining this country??

[berlinfoto-2009]

Why worry about the drug problem it is just a diversion to cover up other things.
You must understand that unseen forces moved in ways, that are totally unlike, what we of think of as being, American, to get Bush elected.

In 2000. A angry mob stopped the recount, this mob was made up of, Cubans, and "Small thinkers who were more than likely, employed by the military industrial complex in Oklahoma", my guess is, "the people from Oklahoma were promised a war", hence more jobs in Oklahoma.

Then again in 2004, unprecedented voter fraud in Ohio, Youngstown in particular, and in the Desert South West, entire ballot boxes, were found in the dumpsters behind the buildings, that were the polling places, and these ballots, were never counted.

My argument is this, "that the entire eight years of the Bush Administration", was like a ball game that was,"thrown by a gambling player who had bet against his own team".

For the sake of argument, could Obama have been elected? without the eight years of the?  "Bush Fiasco"?

I am sure that the overall plan does involve Obama, Do not let it happen.

It is like trying to watch, and see how a magic trick is being preformed by a stage magician," you must watch the slow hand not the fast one".

"The slow hand wants the Implanted Microchip, the RFID", and the "Cashless Society".

I am asking for your help in education the public on what is going on.

If you know anything about politics, then you know what I say is possible, and

that, the more you look, at the evidence, and my argument, and when you think it over,

then you will see, that more than likely, it is the truth.

America has One Percent of its adult population in jail, this is due to schemes of entrapment that involve the covert microchipping of the individuals, then that are targeted to be sent to jail, mainly for what they think.

The Federal Agencies, have been microchipping individuals, since 1980 or even before. It goes well beyond entrapment, once microchipped a individual can be hypnotized to do things that he would not ordinarily even think about doing.

It only feels as though one has been bumped in the buttocks, when they jab a needle in to you, that implants the microchip.

Many people who have been intimidated by the FBI will state that they the FBI Agents, like to jab you in the butt.

I wish you peace, I hope that Hate can be put aside, and the real enemy be fought with knowledge and the truth.

[ibsteve2u]

Pretty funny. On the one hand, we have drug cartels crossing our borders to take what we have illegally. On the other hand, we have the Republicans and the neoliberals among the Democrats trying to "free trade" the nation away legally.

I betcha those Americans who froze their feet off at Valley Forge are...torqued...even in their graves.

[AttentionDeficit]

How are these cartels any different than the gangs popping up during prohibition? If you make something people want illegal, you make it fantastically lucrative.

[cy4466]

by Martha12345 October 21, 2009 11:42 PM EDT
I look at Katie Couric's stupid smile on this page, I think,...... when the media people are so disconnected from the real world,......we're in deep trouble. She must be on Prozac, to be smiling like that, when the country is going down the tubes so quickly.


----


I have a driving job where I get a chance to talk to people where it's not just small talk. I'm tellin you.. People are clueless to what's going on in this country. They take the media's 20 second sound bites as gospel and go about their lives.

#1 This country is on way too many legal and illegal drugs.

What did you do last Friday? Got drunk and smoked some pot.

#2 TV: Who wants to watch the news when there's a million programs on?

What would you like to watch? American Idol please.

#3 Internet: There's a million things to do on the internet besides digging for the REAL NEWS.

Facebook, Twitter, Porn maybe?

#4 Movies: Obama what's to put 1/2 of this country in shackles, huh [blank stare]? Let's go see a movie.

#5 Video games: What did you do yesturday? Played video games.

What did you do last Thursday? Played video games.

What did you do September 27th? Probably played video games.

#6 Sports: Congress just spent another Trillion? Ya, ya, I gotta get to my fantasy draft.

[cy4466]

The drug cartels make 250 billion annually and have used that money to buy off our police, border patrol, judges, politicians in the local state and federal level.

I truly believe they have bought off most of our congress and have done so for decades. With 250 billion at your disposal, you can control many many many people.

If you want to watch something that will open your eyes, check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Lt-3933KA

[scabbard2]

How come the arrival is marked by a blonde blue eyed white girl?????

[prajaowain]

The illegal distribution and drug cartels are only going to get worse in the U.S. The only viable solution is ending prohibition in this country. You want these mex mafia gangs to go away hit them at the product level. Put the distribution into the hands of the government and tax it.

[babooph]

War on drugs was lost ,long before Iraq & Afghanistan were lost -the nation may have been a lot more free when Sears sold opiates for ten cents a bottle.

[SocietysNightmare]

Get a clue, folks. DOPE is now the method this country uses to pull itself out of recession. Remember the 80s?! In this GOD-forsaken town I live in, LAW ENFORCEMENT controls the Marijuana Trade and I can prove it.

[missme4]

This just in! Mexican drug cartels are in EVERY american city.

[esaun211]

America might as well let somebody else make some money. It is not as if they have not made any money off a few coca leaves. Besides new health care plan means more clientel for the real American drug dealers(Phizer,Johnson&Johnson,Bayer,etc). Must be nice.

[ben_novelo]

It is ridiculously pittiful the fact that although commitments and treaties between the Obama administration and the Mexican Government have been signed to combat the Drug Cartels, US Congress has been reluctant to release funds for such endeavour. The saying that if the US catches a cold, Mexico will get neumonia seems to apply correctly to the outstanding everyday battle against the problem. Americans have not considered its drug consumption problem as a threat. Nevertheless, politicians in Capitol Hill, seem to overpass the seriousness of the matter, wether it is called arms control towards the south, finacial and tactical support or any type of involvement in the big battle. Now on, the mentioned old saying can indeed turn around: if Mexico gets a cold, the US will certainly catch a deadly neumonia. A sad end to foresee, being it so that Mexico is still the US main commercial recepient and the fact that we are suppose to be partners.

[cbsblogger]

It is outrageous that our USA politicians have allowed gangs and such criminal element and vermin to infiltrate the country, under the guise of being just innocent and innocuous illegal immigrants.

Allowing illegal immigration is only the beginning of lawlessness that harms Americans in many ways from social costs, job losses, excessive tax burden for schools, to major criminal gangs and drug infiltration. If we allow this cancer to spread we will all pay the price of murderous criminality just as is common place south of the border.

[txlakeside]

Prohibition allowed Organized Crime to flourish ... Gangsters gave political contributions to politicians that kept it illegal. Repeal of Prohibition caused the crime syndicates to move on to other "illegal" vices. No laws can police morality .... ask the Taliban (both the Islamic and American Baptist) They been trying since creation to police morality and look at their wars of the world and hatred of the "different"! They cut off the hands of thieves (eye for an eye) yet people still steal. We use to hang horse thieves yet folks still stole horses. Only the dumb as dirt and the organized crooks love the war on drugs!

[American_Delight]

If you think Baptists are the same as the Taliban, you are morally clueless.