PHOTO: Eastern District U.S. Attorney Robert Capers recently announced charges against reputed Mexican drug cartel leader Tirso Martinez-Sanchez. File Photo
By Forum Staff
The reputed leader of a Mexican cartel earlier this month was extradited from Mexico and arraigned in a Brooklyn courthouse on charges that he was the head of an international narcotics trafficking organization that imported tens of thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the United States, according to Robert Capers, U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
As alleged in the indictment and other court documents, Tirso Martinez-Sanchez, 51, oversaw an extensive drug importation, distribution, and transportation group that is responsible for the importation and distribution of tens of thousands of kilograms of cocaine. In particular, the organization obtained multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Colombian sources of supply. Martinez-Sanchez then organized the importation of that cocaine from outside of the United States, into the United States, by using an elaborate transportation network of trains, tractor trailers, and other vehicles.
During the course of the investigation, law enforcement agents seized approximately 2,000 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside a railroad car in Queens; approximately 2,000 kilograms of coke from a warehouse in Brooklyn; and 500 kilos from a residence in Deer Park, L.I.
Once the cocaine was in the country, Martinez-Sanchez directed organization members to transport the cocaine overland to large distribution centers, including some areas located in the Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago metropolitan areas, Capers said. Martinez-Sanchez directed organization members to coordinate the logistics of storing the cocaine in the group’s stash warehouses and transporting the cocaine to distributors and customers throughout New York and elsewhere in the United States, including California and Illinois.
The investigation also revealed that Martinez-Sanchez instructed cartel members to establish and maintain front companies to purchase or lease these stash warehouses and vehicles to transport cocaine, and to purchase “cover loads,” or legitimate goods that were stored and transported with the cocaine to mask the cocaine shipment.
Additionally, according to the charges, Martinez-Sanchez supervised the collection of the cartel’s proceeds from the sale of cocaine in the United States. After the product was sold, the proceeds were stored in the stash warehouses. At Martinez-Sanchez’s direction, couriers smuggled some of the drug proceeds to members outside of the country using the same transportation network of tractor trailers and trains that had been used to smuggle the cocaine into the United States.
Capers said that the investigation further revealed that Martinez-Sanchez invested a considerable amount of narcotics proceeds in money laundering ventures, such as the purchase of professional soccer teams, and a chain of high-end clothing boutiques. Martinez-Sanchez also invested drug profits back into the instrumentalities of the organization itself, such as purchasing or leasing stash warehouses, vehicles, and front businesses.
Martinez-Sanchez had been designated a Consolidated Priority Organization Target by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, Capers noted. In addition to coordinating the distribution of his own organization’s cocaine, Martinez-Sanchez also transported and distributed narcotics for members of other notorious Mexican cartels.
“This is yet another example of HSI and its partners relentlessly pursuing and dismantling drug trafficking organizations from top to bottom,” said Glenn Sorge, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations New York Office.
