Mexican meth trade traced to Newberg

Published: January 24, 2004
News-Register, Oregon.

By ALEXIS CHARBONNIER
and DIANA G. LANDAZURI

Of the Central Mexico News Service
Special to the News-Register


The 2 pounds of crystal methamphetamine seized by an Oregon state trooper Jan. 9 just north of Newberg probably traveled a long road to Yamhill County.

The two trafficking suspects were identified as Felipe Caro Castro and Noel Caro L—pez. Although a link to the powerful Caro Quintero drug organization has not yet been verified, it is highly likely, given the suspects' names, the nature of the substance and the alleged geographical origin.

The two allegedly drove from Arizona, the largest American importation and trans-shipment state. And it borders the Mexican state of Sonora, a drug trafficking stronghold and home of the Caro Quintero operation.


The Caro Quintero story

The Caro Quintero organization is based in the Sonoran cities of Hermosillo and Agua Prieta. It specializes in the production and distribution of marijuana, with side interests in cocaine and methamphetamine.

It may be aligned with the Arellano F*lix organization, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Together, they make up the Sonora cartel or alliance.

Some other well-known trafficking organizations are the Carrillo Fuentes, based in the north of Mexico, and the Amezcua Contreras, based in the city of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco.

The Caro Quintero organization was founded by Rafael Caro Quintero, born in 1953 in Caborca, Sonora. He completed only two grades of elementary school, but went on to become a multimillionaire as an adult.

Caro once boasted, "With the exception of PEMEX, I think, for a time, I was the person who was bringing the most money into Mexico." PEMEX, Mexico's state-owned oil company, brings in billions.

He was arrested by Mexican authorities on July 31, 1992. Among many other crimes, he was implicated in the torture death of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena in 1985.

He is serving a 100-year sentence in Almoloya, home of Mexico's biggest-name convicts, for money laundering, drug trafficking, homicide and kidnapping.

When Caro was arrested, his brother, Miguel Angel, took over leadership of the cartel.

Miguel Angel was arrested in 1992, but managed to get the charges against him dismissed through a combination of threats and bribes. He was as arrogant as his older brother, once calling a Mexican radio station to give his address on the air and invite U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials to visit him.

They took him up on it 2001, and he is now in prison as well. The business remains in the family, though, with brothers Jorge and Genaro and sister Mar'a del Carmen running the show.


The long road to Oregon

The methamphetamine exported to the United States by the Mexican cartels, which also play a role in its distribution in the United States, are manufactured using the ephedrine reduction method. The ephedrine is imported from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, India and the Czech Republic in pure form, or from Canada in the form of pseudoephedrine.

If law enforcement crackdowns block the usual supply channels, the cartels simply "wash" the ephedrine out of over-the-counter flu medications like Sudafed.

By sea, the ephedrine arrives in the region in the ports of Manzanillo, Colima or Veracruz in Mexico, Houston, Texas, and Veracruz or Panama City in Panama. By air, it comes in mainly at Mexico City International Airport, but sometimes through Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. By land, it comes through Texas or Guatemala.

Much of the methamphetamine shipped to the United States is manufactured in the Western state of Michoac˘n. But so-called superlabs also produce it in northern Mexico, and even within the United States.

It is easier to cook methamphetamine in Mexico, because of its more relaxed tax laws and easier accessibility to chemicals. But the batch seized near Newberg is thought to have come out of labs in Arizona and Riverside, Calif.

Once cooked, methamphetamine produced by the Caro Quintera organization is stored on cartel-owned ranches in the northern part of Sonora. The organization drives some of it across the border in passenger vehicles and packs some of it across on foot.

For bigger quantities, tons at a time in some cases, the organization may ferry drugs north in horse caravans through desolate patches of desert in the area around Douglas, Ariz. Or it may use low-flying, single-engine planes, hard to track on radar, to drop shipments in the same area for land pickup.

More than 40 percent of the methamphetamine smuggled into the United States enters through the Arizona border.

From Arizona, distribution routes in the United States may take it to Georgia, Iowa, Missouri or Hawaii. The Caros were allegedly on the heavily trafficked San Francisco-Portland-Seattle route, supporting drug trade in the West Coast states of California, Oregon and Washington.

The California route was extended through Oregon around 1994, and then pushed on through Washington.

Major highways are often used to ship drugs from one state to another. In Oregon, drugs are typically transported overland on Interstate 5 or Highway 101 in passenger vehicles with hidden compartments, according to the DEA.