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PORT ORCHARD, Wash. — A Mexican supercartel has brought deadly drugs and violence to the quiet, secluded waterfront community of Port Orchard, a 90-minute ferry ride west of Seattle.
This is the Kitsap Peninsula, touted as “the natural side of Puget Sound.” Attracts hikers, bikers, golfers, boaters, and members of the Jalisco New Generation Organization, a top target in the United States.
The cartel, known as CJNG, began converting meth here several years ago as part of a Western Washington drug ring that flooded the area with millions of dollars worth of heroin, meth, cocaine and fentanyl-laced pills. Established a research institute.
Police Chief Matt Brown, standing by the cold waters of Sinclair Inlet during a recent interview, said Port Orchard’s 23 police officers are helping Port Orchard’s 23-year-old police officer in the fight to protect the town’s roughly 17,000 residents from international drug networks and deadly fentanyl. He talked about how outnumbered his troops were.
The situation he described stands in contrast to the image of Bremerton on the opposite shore, home to the vast Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, which provides maintenance and support to ensure U.S. “dominance of the seas.”
He said there is “no longer a drug task force” in Port Orchard or Kitsap County, which he thinks is “absolutely” concerning.
The choice of a town like Port Orchard, 45 miles northwest of Tacoma, signals an important CJNG strategy that extends its tentacles into unexpectedly small corners of America.
Tessa Gorman, assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District, said: “They’re looking at places where there might not be a lot of law enforcement presence and where people wouldn’t expect cartels to be operating, which is a beautiful beachfront location. “We chose the Port Orchard community.” Headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
A Tacoma-based task force led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stumbled upon the CJNG drug ring in 2019, obtained permission from a federal judge to wiretap it, and monitored more than 20 phones for 18 months.
Investigators soon learned that the drug gang’s crimes had spread to several communities on the West Coast and as far south as Oregon and California.
Luke Brandberry, who worked on the case for the DEA, said, “It wasn’t until six months into the investigation that we realized how big the case was, because the web was getting thicker and thicker. Because he was growing up,” he said. Military officer.
“The drug organization we were investigating, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, CJNG, is known for its violence not only locally here in Washington, but also in Mexico,” he said.
Gorman, who oversees all federal prosecutors in Western Washington, said the investigation uncovered a vast drug network whose brutality was remarkable. She said the violence drug gang members were willing to use to protect their businesses was “very disturbing”.
“There was a kidnapping plot, there were shootings, there were stories of torture, including cutting off hands,” Gorman said. “This level of violence in our community is horrifying.”
The Louisville Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, traveled to Seattle, Tacoma, Kent and Port Orchard in November to help police and prosecutors learn more about the violent CJNG drug ring targeting Western Washington. Officials were interviewed and court records reviewed. This report is part of an ongoing project that began in 2019 with a nine-month investigation into CJNG and its critical role in the worst drug epidemic in U.S. history.
Americans tend to know a lot about the CJNG’s biggest rival, the Sinaloa Cartel, and its infamous former kingpin, El Chapo, but a DEA report shows that the CJNG is also a drug-fueled drug addict that plagues the United States. One dominant cartel.
CJNG leader “El Mencho” has been on the run in Mexico for more than a decade, despite a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
In Washington, the CJNG placed Juan Antonio Gonzalez-Carrillo, known as “Toto,” under the surveillance of a drug gang, where he often “fronted” drugs, and local traffickers would loan them drugs and later give them to him. prosecutors allege in court records. Some dealers began using drugs themselves, racking up large tabs, and others had their drug shipments robbed or lost during police traffic stops.
Back in Mexico, CJNG leaders were furious. They sent cartel supervisor Alan Gómez-Marentes to take command of the drug organization and oversee debt collection. After a territorial dispute, Toto left the area and resurfaced in California. A Seattle grand jury indicted him on drug trafficking charges in 2020, but he disappeared. Police are not investigating whether he is in hiding or dead.
Mr. Marentes left his home in Zapopan, west of Guadalajara, Jalisco, where CJNG is headquartered, unaware of the difficulties that awaited him in the United States.
Marentes headed to Washington and settled in the Kent area of King County, between Seattle and Tacoma. During the call with his subordinate, he openly boasted about his close relationship with CJNG executives and his new role as boss of the Washington cartel cell, according to Brandberry, who listened to the conversation while monitoring wiretaps. It is said that he was
Mr. Marentes did not know that investigators were listening when he revealed details about specific drug shipments and revenge plans. Those words will bother him.
“There have been a few times where I’ve had to jump out of the way because I know someone is going to be killed, kidnapped or shot in the next five or 10 minutes,” Brandberry said. said.
According to Magana Ramirez’s plea agreement, Luis Arturo Magana Ramirez, a drug kingpin who lived in Fife, Washington, was known to kidnap and harm debtors while investigators monitored his phone calls and emails. He said he often talked about plans to attack or kill others.
Investigators often had to rush the lead case prosecutor out of his sleep to seek guidance. They didn’t want to prematurely detonate the investigation, but they also didn’t want to hurt anyone.
“It’s a really difficult balance for police officers and prosecutors to strike,” Gorman said. “They’re walking a tightrope every day. They’re always trying to figure out when to intervene.”
In some cases, police did not have sufficient advance information to prevent kidnappings, assaults, or other violence.
For example, investigators tried to arrest a local street vendor, but were unable to find him. A man who owed money to a drug organization has disappeared. Brandberry, who bought drugs from the man while undercover, said information he received during the investigation indicated the man was murdered and his body abandoned somewhere in a large wooded area in southern King County. Ta.
On another occasion, Jose Elias Barbosa, a member of a drug gang, tried to seize a woman’s car because of a drug debt. In November 2019, someone entered the Port Orchard meth facility near a shopping center and shot Barbosa in the collarbone. Barbosa survived, but the case remains unsolved because the attacker did not reveal his identity.
Eventually he found himself in danger again, and this time the police came to his aid.
Mr. Magana-Ramirez offered another member of the drug organization $10,000 for Mr. Barbosa’s head. At the time, no one could find Barboza, so another plan was made to kidnap Barboza’s brother-in-law, cut off his hand, and send him in a box as a warning to Barboza.
When Barboza resurfaced, police arrested him at a Mexican restaurant in Kent to prevent the murder. When officers arrived, they found suspicious men in a BMW monitoring the restaurant and believed they were waiting for an opportunity to snatch Barbosa.
Somehow, Barbosa’s brother-in-law learns of the murder plot and manages to persuade his relatives in Mexico to lobby the cartel leader to spare him and Barbosa.
CJNG often sends boxes containing hands and heads to victims’ relatives in Mexico as a means of reigning in fear. However, the CJNG and other cartels typically avoid “spill-over violence” across borders. Because it would attract too much attention from US police.
However, the drug organization continued to plan violent acts in Western Washington.
In Port Orchard, investigators searched a meth facility after Barbosa was shot and found 15 guns, along with heroin and cocaine. Also found were 1,700 counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl. This is especially concerning because DEA testing shows that seven out of every 10 pills on the street today contain a potentially lethal dose.
Police also found 120 pounds of methamphetamine inside the home, including meth-laced candles. Cartels are increasingly smuggling stimulants into the United States in liquid form hidden in candles, gasoline, wiper fluid, and other items.
The CJNG’s Washington cell regularly issued shipment orders to Mexican cooks, who injected liquid meth into candle wax. When Candle arrived at the Port Orchard home, members of the drug gang extracted the meth and turned it back into solid form. The traffickers then packaged the product in hard, transparent blocks similar to rock candy for sale to customers.
In April 2020, Magana-Ramirez described a revenge plan against people who had money for drugs, saying one man “needed a beating.”
According to the plea agreement, Magana-Ramirez told drug gang members, “Gather as many toys as you can and I can get rid of them,” referring to guns.
“This is about me getting them and grabbing them and strapping them on.” [expletive] dog. “
Marentes and Magana Ramirez were among about 20 drug gang members and associates arrested in July 2020, all of whom ultimately pleaded guilty.
In sentencing memos against some major drug gang members, prosecutors sought to explain the harm they caused to the community. Assistant U.S. attorneys cited overdose data from King County, which includes Seattle and Kent, showing an average of 17 people die each week from overdoses, mostly from fentanyl.
Under his plea agreement, Marentes admitted that his drug organization trafficked at least 78 kilograms of methamphetamine, more than two kilograms of heroin, and 930 grams of fentanyl. Considering that he could die with just 2 milligrams of fentanyl, that means Marentes’ drug gang brought in an estimated 465,000 potentially lethal doses.
A Seattle judge sentenced Marentes to 11 years in federal prison without the option of parole, noting that he had a previous federal prison conviction for drug trafficking.
A month after his 2020 arrest, Brandberry was forced to leave the DEA task force and return to patrolling the streets of Kent, confronting his town’s victimization to international drug trafficking. .
“Every day it seemed like there was an overdose. It was just me and one other officer, bodies in the street, trying to bring them back, trying to find ID, trying to find next of kin.” “I was doing it,” Brandberry said.
“You forget how many mothers and fathers are grieving the loss of a loved one because of this country.”
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