U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and police in the Arizona city of Tempe have locked awayDon't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
20 members of a criminal gang linked to Mexico's powerful Sinaloa narco mob, authorities said.
In addition to the arrests, made within the scope of "Operation Nayarit Stampede," authorities also confiscated $2.4 million in cash, an airplane, 10 vehicles, three tons of marijuana and 30 pounds of methamphetamine.
The gang was led by three individuals identified as Leonel Galvez Leal, Norberto Meza Montoya and José Alonzo RodrÃguez Rosas, the Tempe Police Department said in a media release Friday.
The investigation began six months ago when police in Tempe, a city in southwestern Arizona, learned of the existence of purported stash houses used to store drugs for eventual delivery to customers in that city, as well as in New York, Alabama, Caliphornia and other states.
The special agent in charge of the DEA field office in Phoenix, Doug Coleman, said the operation dismantled an organization that operated along the U.S.-Mexico border and in the interior of the United States.