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associate of McCorkle’s shot a trooper as he drove his car
into the Hughes’ family driveway. The person he shot and
wounded was Trooper Michael Hughes, the brother of the
trooper who arrested McCorkle, who was also a Maryland
State Trooper. Through a complex investigation supported
by the DEA-supervised Intelligence Group of the Washington-Baltimore
HIDTA, the task force was able to successfully
link Barrios and McCorkle to the attempted murder.
In May 1997, they and nearly twenty others were incarcerated
for a variety of drug charges, and several were convicted
of attempted murder. The investigation continued
until the arrest of McCorkle’s drug supplier in 1999. The
task force that investigated the murder-drug ring, including
three DEA agents, later received the nation’s prestigious
Top Cop award and were recognized at a White House
ceremony with President Clinton and Attorney General
Reno. David Hughes later became a DEA Special Agent.
Mexico
Between 1999 and 2003, Mexico remained the key transit
country for cocaine en route to U.S. markets, as well as a
significant source country for heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine
destined for the United States.
Among the most important changes that occurred in Mexico
between 1999 and 2003 was the July 2000 election of President
Vicente Fox-Quesada, ending the 70-year rule of a
single political party in Mexico. President Fox ran on a
platform of restoring public security and putting an end to
corruption. The Fox administration made some significant
progress towards those extremely ambitious goals by restructuring
the Attorney General’s office to reduce corruption
and taking action against leaders of significant drug
trafficking organizations. Mexican police and the military
had effected the arrests of significant drug traffickers within
virtually every major drug trafficking organization operating
in Mexico.
As a result of this renewed dedication to fight drug trafficking,
the level of cooperation in the counterdrug area reached
unprecedented levels. Information sharing between DEA
and the Government of Mexico was extremely productive
and brought about very positive results in joint enforcement
operations. By 2003, DEA’s relationship with its counterparts
in the Government of Mexico was better than ever.
.
Operation Impunity I and II
(1999-2000)
In September 1999, the Amado Carrillo-Fuentes drug trafficking
organization suffered a big hit when DEA and its counterparts
arrested three of its major cell heads and 90 of its members. The
arrests disabled all facets of their organization—the group’s
headquarters in Mexico, the U.S. cell heads, the drug and money
transportation systems, and the local distribution groups. As a
result of Operation Impunity, 12,434 kilos of cocaine and more
than 4,800 pounds of marijuana were seized, along with $19
million in U.S. currency and another $7 million in assets. The
Amado Carrillo-Fuentes organization had operated without fear
of capture or prosecution in the United States, believing that
only their low-level operatives were at risk. Operation Impunity
effectively demonstrated that even the highest level drug traffickers
based in foreign countries could not conduct drug operations
inside the U.S. with impunity.
Operation Impunity II continued to target the Amado Carrillo-
Fuentes organization and concluded in December 2000 with the
arrest of 155 individuals, the seizure of 5,490 kilograms of cocaine,
9,526 pounds of marijuana, and $11 million in U.S. currency.
Those arrested faced a variety of federal charges for
their involvement in smuggling thousands of pounds of cocaine
and marijuana from Mexico across the Southwest Border
into Texas. Some of the defendants arrested during Operation
Impunity II were organization leaders who replaced those arrested
in the previous investigations. The three phases (Operation
Limelight in 1996 was the first phase) clearly demonstrate
the tenacity of some trafficking organizations and the need for
law enforcement to continuously investigate groups that are
large and well-established.
Colombia
By the mid-1990s, Colombian law enforcement began targeting
leaders of the Cali cartel based on extensive investigation by
DEA. The arrests or surrenders of six top Cali leaders during
the summer of 1995 marked the beginning of the decline of the
Cali cartel.
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Although some elements of the Cali cartel continued to play an
important role in the world’s wholesale cocaine market, they no
longer dominated the international cocaine trade.
Following the dismantling of the Cali cartel, experienced traffickers
who had been active for years, but who worked in the
shadow of the Cali drug lords, seized the opportunity and increased
their role in the drug trade. However, unlike their cartel
predecessors, the Colombian cocaine trafficking groups of the
late 1990s and early 2000s were decentralized and typically specialized
in one aspect of the cocaine industry. No one group of