Filed by Gail Banzet in Business, Feature, Local News, News.
November 4, 2009

A couple weeks ago, U.S. authorities performed one of the largest-ever single strikes on Mexican drug gangs operating on American soil. More than 300 members of the drug organization La Familia were arrested, but law officers say this is just the beginning. Eight of those arrests took place in Oklahoma laying the groundwork for a major investigation in the heartland. Gail Banzet (Banz-it) with member station K-O-S-U reports.

Outside a truck stop alongside Interstate 35 just on the edge of Oklahoma City, I-44, I-40 and I-35 all come together. Narcotics officers say this is where a lot of drugs are transported through the heart of Oklahoma.

“Many of the drugs going for distribution nationwide are going to come right through this area within a 24-hour period on almost a daily basis,” said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

He said Oklahoma City is the ideal, central location for drug trafficking. Oklahoma already faces a growing problem of homemade meth, and now cartel organizations are using its Capitol city to drop off everything from marijuana and heroin to cocaine and prescription pills. State drug agencies don’t keep a running total of arrests, but there’s been a steady increase of drug traffic since the mid 90s.

At the Love’s Travel Stop just off the interstate, big angry tractor trailers stop for fuel and service. Anywhere from 3 to 5,000 people will pass through here in a day’s time.

Inside, general manager Bill Sellers says he’s never really thought much about Mexican drug trafficking outside his window, but drug busts are pretty common.

“We see drug busts out in our parking lot. On occasion, we’ll see multiple police vehicles pulling up and checking a car. Dogs get out, and usually they find something,” Sellers said.

Back out on the interstate, narcotics officers are making drug busts sometimes daily, sometimes weekly. Officer Jack Forney is a K-9 interdiction unit agent. He says smugglers are getting creative with their business.

“They’ll hide it on their persons, they’ll hide it in tires, they’ll hide it underneath the dash compartments, spare tires in the back of the vehicle, compartments built into firewalls or built into motors. We’ve seen some motor compartments lately,” Forney said.

Mexican drug cartels are also reaching different demographics of people to do their dirty work. Law officers like Lieutenant Brett Key of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol say working the interstates is an even riskier job these days because almost anyone could be suspect.

“The people that are actually moving the narcotics and moving the currency and stuff through our state and through other states – there’s not a gender specific or a race specific individual there,” Key said.

State troopers are stepping up their firearm and hand-to-hand combat training because as the amount of trafficking increases, so does the violence. Smugglers are told to protect their shipments at all costs, and once they do reach a central location like Oklahoma City, they infiltrate the community looking for a stash house and recruits they can trust. State narcotic spokesman Mark Woodward says some of the drug shipments never leave Oklahoma.

“So they do bring people that they rely on to come up to places like Oklahoma City, build a house, build a family, send their kids to school, open up a car lot, a curio shop, but most of those are nothing more than fronts for them to help bring the drugs in to Oklahoma for nationwide distribution, and more importantly using those businesses to get their money or their drug proceeds back to Mexico,” Woodward said.

Woodward says more crackdowns on large gangs like La Familia are imminent. Law enforcement hopes the city’s stand-alone Drug Enforcement Agency and interdiction unit will change the way cartels do business and reduce the amount of trafficking on Oklahoma’s interstates.