Federal agents nabbed more than 137 suspected drug traffickers in Denver and 15 other cities Tuesday, trying to break up an international heroin operation.
The ring used illegal immigrants to sell high-strength heroin with “pizza-delivery” efficiency, federal agents said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration agents also seized 37 pounds of heroin and more than $380,000 in cash – including $26,473 in Colorado – along with handguns and vehicles.
The kingpins in Mexico remain at large, said Steve Robertson, special agent in DEA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Catching them depends on cooperation with Mexican authorities, Robertson said.
“Some of them are on the run now,” he said. “We don’t know where they are. They’ve been known to travel both sides” of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The five men and women arrested in Denver allegedly were part of a call-and-order, home-delivery operation spanning the metro area, from fancy homes in Castle Pines to apartments in Aurora, DEA regional spokeswoman Suzanne Halonen said.
A seven-pound load of heroin seized in Adams County recently ranked as Colorado’s largest in a decade, she said.
More than half those arrested nationwide are illegal immigrants, authorities said.
“Law enforcement across the country will continue to work diligently to shut down these operations,” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said.
DEA agents described an operation in which Mexico-based drug workers grew and refined poppies, then smuggled an 80-percent-pure brand of black tar heroin through the area around Nogales, Ariz.
The heroin moved in cars with women and babies, and with migrants hiking across the border.
A distribution pipeline ran from Nayarit, Mexico, to Nashville, Tenn.
In addition to home delivery, dealers targeted recovering addicts outside drug treatment centers, Robertson said.
In Colorado, distributors speaking mostly in Spanish and dispatched from a cellphone ordering center, delivered heroin in pre-packaged orange, green and blue balloons to a mostly Caucasian clientele, Halonen said.
“They were all Mexican nationals doing the delivering,” she said.
“It was like Domino’s Pizza. You order it up, and they deliver right to your doorstep.”
Staff writer Bruce Finley can be reached at 303-820-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com.
