Federal authorities raided the headquarters of a Texas border sheriff’s office whose top official is widely known for claiming that the border is safe. The sheriff frequently minimizes cartel activity even though one of Mexico’s most violent criminal organizations operates in his county.
190 Pounds of Fentanyl Seized at Arizona Immigration Checkpoint
Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents seized more than 190 pounds of fentanyl at an interior immigration checkpoint.
Retiring U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz tweeted photos from an immigration checkpoint near Yuma, Arizona. The images, taken last week, show more than 190 pounds hidden behind the rear seats of the alleged smuggler’s vehicle.
As the vehicle approached the Interstate 8 immigration checkpoint on May 30, a Border Patrol K-9 alerted to the possible presence of drugs in the pickup truck. A physical search of the vehicle led to the discovery of plastic-wrapped packages of drugs.
Chief Ortiz reported that the 190 pounds of fentanyl are enough to provide more than 40 million lethal doses.
Yuma Sector Chief Patrol Agent Patricia McGurk-Daniel reported the value of the drugs to be more than $2 million.
A few days later, Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers seized more than 229 pounds of fentanyl pills. The troopers found the drugs during a traffic stop on Interstate 19 near Amado, Arizona.
Border Patrol Agent Fidel Cabrera told KYMA, “It’s one of the largest if not the largest [fentanyl seizure] we’ve had here in Yuma.”
Between October 1, 2022, and April 30, 2023, Yuma Sector agents apprehended 289 pounds of fentanyl, according to a CBP report. This seven-month total nearly equals the total seizures of fentanyl for the past three years combined. Adding in the seizure above brings this year’s total to approximately 480 pounds compared to 336 pounds for the prior three years combined. The seizure by Arizona DPS cited above will not be included in the CBP reports.
Agents in the San Diego Sector also seized 112 pounds of fentanyl pills on Interstate 8 near Pine Valley, California, on May 18, Breitbart Texas reported. During FY23, San Diego Sector agents seized 866 pounds of fentanyl through the end of April, the CBP report states. During the same period last year, agents seized nearly 420 pounds of the deadly drug.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.
Feds Raid Office of Texas Border Sheriff Known for Downplaying Mexican Cartel Influence
Federal authorities raided the headquarters of a Texas border sheriff’s office whose top official is widely known for claiming that the border is safe. The sheriff frequently minimizes cartel activity even though one of Mexico’s most violent criminal organizations operates in his county.
On Monday, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations raided the Webb County Sheriff’s Office in Laredo, Texas. The Laredo Morning Times first reported on the raid. Breitbart Texas contacted an FBI spokesman who confirmed that they executed court-authorized law enforcement activities at the building but could not provide additional details.
The United Independent School District in Laredo issued a prepared statement confirming that a second raid had taken place at their offices in connection with Disinfect Promaster. That company is owned by Web County Sheriff’s Office Assistant Chief Ricardo “Rick” Rodriguez. The assistant chief also serves as a board member in the school district. In response to the raid, the school board stated that they did not have the authority to remove Rodriguez, but they would be meeting this week to discuss the issue.
By Monday afternoon, the Webb County Sheriff’s Office sent out a prepared statement claiming that the case was also tied to Rodriguez and Disinfect Promaster.
In their statement, sheriff’s officials claimed that sheriff’s employees cooperated with authorities and that Sheriff Martin Cuellar was questioned about employees disinfecting services carried out in county buildings, churches, and daycares. “He explained that this service was provided through the Sheriff’s Office and not through the company,” the statement revealed.
During his time as sheriff, Cuellar has made a name for himself for his constant claim that the border is safe and for minimizing the presence of drug cartels in Laredo. This is despite the fact that the city is one of the main trafficking routes used by the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas.
In 2015, Martin Cuellar claimed that a large-scale marijuana growing operation with more than 1,070 plants and with security guards armed with AK-47s was not tied to Los Zetas. As Breitbart Texas reported exclusively at the time a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council revealed that the grow operation was tied to a Mexican drug cartel.
Cuellar is also the brother of U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX) who was himself the target of an FBI raid in January 2022. Federal authorities served search warrants in his office and home, also in Laredo. As Breitbart Texas reported, the case was tied to a federal grand jury inquiry into Cuellar, his wife, and unnamed associates in relation to dealings with foreign officials from Azerbaijan and favors allegedly granted in exchange for valuables. At the time, the investigation caused much speculation about possible arrests or investigations. Since then, that case appears to have gone dormant.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Randy Clark contributed to this report.
San Francisco Mayor: Biden Needs to Do More to Fight Fentanyl
San Francisco Mayor London Breed said Monday that President Joe Biden is not doing enough to fight the scourge of fentanyl and needs to do more.
Breed led a bipartisan group of mayors in a resolution adopted at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in San Francisco. The resolution reads, in part:
The United States Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution sponsored by Mayor London N. Breed to support urgent and increased federal enforcement and public health interventions to address the fentanyl crisis. The resolution was supported by a bi-partisan group of Mayors from across the country.
“Locally we are doing all we can to address the challenges of open-air drug dealing of fentanyl in our community,” said Mayor Breed. “Despite the strong and laudable efforts of our local law enforcement agencies, we know San Francisco—and cities across the United States—needs more support. The trafficking and dealing of fentanyl is a national crisis, and requires a robust response from the federal government.”
Specifically, the resolution calls on the Biden Administration to act immediately and increase its enforcement and prosecution of high-level fentanyl drug traffickers and dealers in communities throughout the country. Mayor Breed’s resolution states that it is imperative that the federal government increase its collaboration with local authorities to combat drug trafficking and dealing, and form joint investigations with local law enforcement to pursue these traffickers and dealers.
Until now, President Biden has primarily faced criticism from Republicans for his lax border policies, which have allowed millions of migrants into the country, as well as drug smugglers bringing in deadly fentanyl.
But Mayor Breed, facing what she calls a “public health calamity” from opioid abuse in San Francisco, has begun demanding that the federal government do more to assist, as state and local efforts have faltered.
The issue has become a potent one in the 2024 presidential race. Former President Donald Trump has vowed to “wage war” on drug cartels, and Democratic Party candidate Robert F. Kennedy says he will seal the border.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
THIS IS WHAT THE IDIOT GOV IS WORRIED ABOUT IN A STATE THAT HAS TENS OF MILLIONS OF DEM VOTING ILLEGALS!
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING AT THE WHEEL OR GETTING YOUR CELL PHONE FIX, THE DEMOCRAT PARTY WAS DESTROY AMERICA
Owner of Biggest Hotel in San Francisco Gives Up Amid Downtown Woes
The owner of two major hotels in downtown San Francisco is preparing to give the properties up to foreclosure as the city’s downtown decline continues, with retail shops leaving the area amid crime and homelessness.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday:
The owner of two of San Francisco’s biggest hotels — Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 — has stopped mortgage payments and plans to give up the two properties, in another sign of disinvestment in hard-hit downtown.
Park Hotels & Resorts said Monday that it stopped making payments on a $725 million loan due in November and expects the “ultimate removal of these hotels” from its portfolio. The company said it would “work in good faith with the loan’s servicers to determine the most effective path forward.”
The 1,921-room Hilton is the city’s largest hotel and the 1,024-room Parc 55 is the fourth-largest, and together they account for around 9% of the city’s hotel stock. The hotels could potentially be taken over by lenders or sold to a new group as part of the foreclosure process.
San Francisco has been suffering an exodus of major retail stores from the Union Square area over the past several months. The city also lost residents during the pandemic, and there are fewer commuters due to a shift to work-from-home in the tech industry. Amid a looming commercial real estate collapse, experts are advising the city to think about creative and drastic solutions to bring visitors back to the city before it is too late.
The Chronicle notes that tourism spending in the city is up, but convention attendance has fallen drastically and is not expected to recover for years. The cost of living in the city also remains high, despite its troubles.
Mayor London Breed has been at pains to deny that the downtown area is facing economic collapse, as have left-wing pundits eager to deflect criticism of years of soft-on-crime policies. But the crisis continues to worsen.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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