BORDER TOWN USA: Mexican Cartel-Connected Drug Trafficking Ring Busted in Oklahoma
BORDER TOWN, USA — Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control (OBN) officials announced the arrest of 16 people for their alleged roles in a Mexican cartel-connected drug trafficking organization. Investigators said the local residents purchased fentanyl directly from “cartels out of Mexico.” The state did not specify which cartel was involved.
Fox 23 Tulsa reported that OBN agents arrested 16 people in connection to a months-long investigation into a local drug-trafficking ring in northeast Oklahoma. The members of the organization reportedly purchased “raw fentanyl powder” from “people directly tied to the cartels out of Mexico.”
“These individuals are buying directly from people tied to the cartels out of Mexico that are bringing raw fentanyl powder across the border, moving it up into the Tulsa area. But also, it’s impacting the distribution in places like Bartlesville, Collinsville, Chouteau,” OBN spokesman Mark Woodward told the local Fox affiliate. “Today they’re using social media to arrange for the loads being brought from Mexico to Tulsa and then they were using social media to arrange for the pickup and distribution once it got to Tulsa and moving it to places like Collinsville and Bartlesville to support somebody’s opioid addiction. Just one of those dosage units, as we’ve seen, you know, unfortunately, over the last several years, could be fatal because of just how powerful fentanyl can be.”
The news outlet released the names of some of those arrested:
- Justin Daniel Smith
- Erin Joy Zaremba
- Kimberly Whisenhunt
- Joseph Kristopher George
- Dana Ryan-Tapp
- Chad Bentley Dorst
- John Frederick Carter
- Victoria Stephanie Sumner (Hendertilo)
- Brandon Dale Wilson
The arrests in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area follow another cartel-connected smuggling organization arrested in the Oklahoma City area in June.
News Nation’s Jorge Ventura reported the investigation led to the seizure of the seizure of more than 14,000 fentanyl pills and ten pounds of heroin that were “purchased and shipped from Mexican cartels.”
“They’re ordering them (the drugs) from Mexico,” Woodward told New Nation in June. “The cartels are bringing them across the border, getting them to their suppliers on this side of the border.”
OBN agents used GPS tracker and other surveillance methods to follow the drugs from the border region to Oklahoma, Fox 23 added.
“We’ve identified a total of 23 people at this point and have been serving arrest warrants for them this week, including yesterday and today,” Woodward told Fox 23. “Right now, we’ve got 16 in custody. We still have about several outstanding that we believe we’re going to be able to get into custody pretty soon that are looking at a variety of charges, including the trafficking of fentanyl.”
Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. 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.
Two Million Migrants Apprehended at Southwest Border for 2nd Straight Year
Border Patrol agents assigned to the nine southwest border sectors apprehended more than two million migrants for the second consecutive year. September’s apprehension of approximately 218,000 migrants pushed the Fiscal Year 23 report to just over two million migrants, according to unofficial Border Patrol reports reviewed by Breitbart Texas.
Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 5.7 million migrants who illegally crossed the southwest border between ports of entry, the reports indicate.
Randy Clark / BreitbartIn September, the last month of the fiscal year, Border Patrol agents apprehended just over 218,000 migrants, unofficial reports revealed. This brought the total for the year to approximately 2,045,000 migrant apprehensions. In addition, Border Patrol officials classified an additional 664,000 migrants as known got-aways.
In contrast, during President Donald Trump’s last full fiscal year in office, agents apprehended only 400,651. During the last two months alone, agents apprehended 399,000 migrants.
The two million migrant apprehensions do not include migrants who entered the country through the CBP One app and other immigration blanket parole programs not authorized by Congress. Official U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that include these numbers are not expected to be released until the end of October.
Randy Clark / BreitbartFollowing the end of Title 42 on May 11, the Biden administration relished in a brief decline in migrant apprehensions along the border. In June, agents apprehended 99,543 migrants. During that time, migrants and human smuggling cartels re-evaluated the Biden border security and immigration plans, pushing another surge of migrants to the border. Since the low point in June, apprehensions jumped approximately 119 percent to September’s 218,000.
Migrant apprehensions exceeded 200,000 per month in four months during the fiscal year. Two additional months exceeded 180,000.
Despite the recent surge in the Tucson and Del Rio Sectors, the El Paso Sector finished the year in first place with the apprehension of more than 426,000 migrants. Del Rio finished the year in second place with the arrest of nearly 400,000 migrants. The Tucson, Rio Grande Valley, and San Diego Sectors rounded out the top five with 374,000, 338,000, and 230,000 respectively.
Randy Clark / Breitbart TexasIn September, Tucson Sector agents apprehended more than 51,000 migrants. Del Rio finished second with nearly 48,000 apprehensions. The Rio Grande Valley Sector finished in third with more than 45,000 apprehensions.
In the five Texas-based Border Patrol sectors, agents apprehended nearly 134,000 of the 218,000 September apprehensions (61 percent). This brought the FY23 total for the Texas-based sectors to more than 1.2 million of the 2.045 million apprehensions (60 percent).
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. 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.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The September and FY23 year-end totals referenced above came from unofficial Border Patrol reports obtained from multiple law enforcement agencies. Official reports from U.S. Customs and Border Protection are not expected to be released until late October.
Three U.S. Citizens Who Joined Cartels After Falling in Love with Drug Lords
The allure of a fast-paced life filled with danger and luxury attracted several women to the arms of drug traffickers and a life of crime after joining their lover’s criminal organization. While these cartels operate in Mexico, U.S. citizens have also fallen in love with Mexican drug lords and have faced dire consequences afterward.
Mimi Webb-Miller
One of the most famous cases is the story of Mimi Webb Miller and her short-lived romance with the late Pablo “El Zorro de Ojinaga” Acosta Villarreal. In the 1980s, Acosta Villarreal built his own criminal organization in Chihuahua, where he controlled approximately 200 miles of border areas that he used to smuggle approximately 60 tons of cocaine a year.
In the case of Webb Miller, the Texas woman grew up in Wichita Falls and came from a politically connected family. According to a 2014 article by the New York Times, Webb Miller moved to the Texas Big Bend area in the 1970s, where she bought a ranch and settled. There, she met a man from Mexico and had a common-law marriage. In the 1980’s Webb Miller began talking with Acosta, who had a property next to her ranch. He helped her get permits for a cross-border horseback tour business she started. After Webb Miller’s common law marriage ended, she dated another man, and later began dating Pablo Acosta.
While Webb Miller is not believed to have taken part in Acosta’s drug business, she was forced to go on the run soon after the drug lord died during a shootout with Mexican authorities in 1987. The flight came after former Presidio County Sheriff Rick Thompson told her that cartel gunmen had placed a price on her head because she knew too much about the drug trade. Years later, Webb-Miller returned to the region where she continues to live.
Deanna M. Gerards
In August, authorities in the Mexican state of Morelos announced the arrest of Deanna Gerards, claiming she was a U.S. fugitive wanted in North Dakota on drug trafficking charges connecting her to the Sinaloa Cartel.
According to information released by the Morelos State Attorney General’s Office, Gerards was romantically linked to an unnamed drug lord from the Sinaloa Cartel. Federal prosecutors in the U.S. claim that Gerards helped coordinate the trafficking of meth, cocaine, and fentanyl into Minnesota and North Dakota.
The hunt for Gerard began in 2020 as part of a crackdown by a task force aimed at stopping fentanyl trafficking. After her August arrest in Mexico, authorities were able to have her deported and moved to the U.S., where she remains in custody awaiting trial.
Emma Coronel
Emma Coronel Aispuro, the current wife of jailed Sinaloa Cartel drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, continues to be a social media sensation after her recent release from federal custody for her husband’s criminal empire. Coronel Aispuro is both a U.S. and Mexican citizen.
As Breitbart Texas reported, Coronel Aispuro spent a little less than three years in a U.S. federal prison and several months in a halfway house after her February 2021 arrest and subsequent conviction on various conspiracy charges.
She was born on July 2, 1989, in Santa Clara, California, but grew up in a small ranch called La Angostura, located in northern Mexico, in an area known as the “Golden Triangle” of drug trafficking This region includes the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua. She has been with Guzmán since she was 18 years old.
Her life has been surrounded by mystery and controversy due to her long-standing family ties to the Sinaloa Cartel. Her father, Inés Coronel Barrera, and her older brother, Inés Omar, were considered leadership figures within the Sinaloa Cartel. Both are serving a ten-year sentence on drug charges in Mexico following their 2017 convictions. Various journalists in Mexico have also claimed that Emma Coronel Aispuro is the niece of the late Ignacio Coronel Villarreal — one the top leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel and a former close associate of El Chapo.
Coronel met Guzmán when she was 17 at a party near La Angostura. According to an interview published by Proceso magazine in 2016, Coronel Aispuro was drawn to El Chapo by the way he talked to her and treated her and not by flashy gifts. The two married on July 2, 2007, when she turned 18, in a private party where only family and close friends were in attendance.
After the wedding, Coronel Aispuro moved to Culiacan, Sinaloa, where she studied journalism. In the published interview, she claimed that her life was quite normal and that she never saw weapons or drugs when she was with her husband.
“In fact, I have no proof that he trafficked drugs,” Coronel Aispuro told Proceso.
In 2011, the woman had twin daughters, MarÃa Joaquina and Emaly Guadalupe, with the imprisoned drug lord.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “Dharma Fernández” from Baja California.
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