DEA: Authorities bust statewide smuggling ring

McALLEN — Authorities have seized 21 tons of narcotics and indicted almost 50 members of an international drug trafficking organization with ties to the Gulf Cartel, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said Thursday.

The arrests come after a two-and-a-half-year investigation involving U.S. and Mexican authorities, aimed at destroying an operation accused of smuggling more than 2 tons of cocaine and 33 tons of marijuana from Mexico through the Rio Grande Valley.

Dubbed “Operation Puma,” the investigation targeted the organization’s command structure, money laundering components and street-level dealers operating in Mexico, McAllen, Laredo, San Antonio and Dallas.

“Operation Puma represents Â… an unprecedented cooperation between U.S. law enforcement and the Mexican government,” said Zoran B. Yankovich, a special agent in charge of the DEA’s Houston office, in a written statement.

In South Texas alone, agents arrested 27 people and seized $5.5 million in assets and 20 tons of cocaine and marijuana, according to the DEA.

Federal authorities would say little about the smuggling organization Thursday. And indictments filed against many of those arrested in “Operation Puma” remained sealed by a federal court.

But a few of the organization’s major players have already made appearances in federal court, said sources close to the investigation.

Those players include:

- Carlos Landin-Martinez, the purported second-in-command of the Gulf Cartel’s operations in Reynosa. Landin-Martinez was arrested last month at a McAllen H.E.B. store after a DEA agent spotted him grocery shopping. Prosecutors allege he collected taxes — or el piso — from smaller drug smuggling rings moving narcotics through Reynosa.

- Sergio Maldonado, of McKinney, the alleged leader of a North Texas-based Gulf Cartel cell.

- Several Mexican nationals who served as lookouts for cocaine shipments being smuggled through drainage pipes linking Reynosa to Hidalgo.

Sources close to the investigations said more of the indictments could be unsealed as soon as today.

“The message to these organizations should be clear — use the cross-border area at your own peril,” Yankovich said.

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Monitor staff writer Andres R. Martinez contributed to this report.

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Jeremy Roebuck covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.