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Drug cartels’ business booms while legitimate supply chains struggle, overdose data shows


CHICAGO (WLS) – Disturbing new data shows drug overdose deaths are at an all-time high in Chicago and nationally. Drug cartels continue to transport illegal products while other supply chains around the world struggle.

For drug cartels, planes, trains, and cars aren’t Thanksgiving favorites. That’s the description of their logistics machine.

Put in trucks, tunnels and even submarines, and authorities say the business continues to operate even as legitimate supply chains struggle.

On Wednesday, November 3 at Gary/Chicago International Airport, a private jet registered in Mexico arrived weighing 220 lbs. of cocaine, according to federal drug investigators. Investigators said the drugs were packed inside several suitcases and were delivered to a waiting SUV.

“If they lose their load, it could be the difference between life and death,” said Ed Farrell, owner of Silver Star Protection Group.

Farrell, who is also a former Vice Marshal of the United States, said drug agents are always looking for back doors, away from locations that are more likely to be noticed.

“They went to an airport further away, which tells me there is less surveillance,” says Farrell.

Gary airport officials said there were no checks on the plane because it cleared customs in Houston hours earlier after a flight from Toluca, Mexico.

Among those on board was Sebastian Vazquez-Gamez, 30, a Mexican national, according to the federal complaint. He allegedly headed to Chicago’s Gold Coast and checked into a hotel in Chestnut Street, where agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration said they arrested him and seized cocaine.

Those arrested also included Alexis Jimenez-Perez, 25, of Columbus, Indiana, and Sergio Ivan Blas, 39, who were detained a day later.

Dealers say the sales ledger found in Blas’ car reveals hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug dealings. Federal authorities seized an $8 million jet the group allegedly used and moved it to a hangar in Florida, according to flight records.

The plane made multiple trips from Mexico to Texas to get to Gary, and authorities said they monitored it. Aviation website FlightAware has released photos of the jet at several airports in the US and Mexico.

The DEA’s special agent in charge in Chicago declined to discuss the Gary case, but said the cartel supply lines were not affected by the global shipping issues.

“The gangs use everything they can to get drugs from Mexico into the United States and then into local markets,” said Robert Bell, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA. And in Chicago, that means mainly for the gangs that control the drug market in Chicago” Chicago. “In the first quarter of fiscal 2021, we seized more methamphetamine than in the entire 2020 fiscal year.”

Many illegal drugs are stopped but also consumed, with the booty concoction of powerful painkiller killer Fentanyl now causing 75% of all overdose deaths in the Chicago area . The most recent data, from April 2020 to April 2021, shows record-setting drug overdose deaths in Cook County and across the state of Illinois. For the first time, 100,000 Americans die from a drug overdose in a year, a 30% jump.

Investigators said four out of every 10 fake fentanyl pills tested contained a lethal dose.

“There is little quality control when fentanyl is manufactured on an industrial scale by corporations in Mexico,” says Bell.

It was a hot and often boiling business. In early November, a masked and heavily armed team attacked a seaside resort in Cancun, Mexico, killing two men. Investigators believe it was a dispute between two rival corporations; Together with two corporations control the entire illegal drug trade of Chicago.

The leaders of those two Mexican gangs are now Chicago’s most wanted fugitives. For the head of the DEA Chicago, one fact remains constant in the world of the cartel.

“There is no such thing as nonviolent drug trafficking,” says Bell.

You won’t hear the phrase “War on Drugs” coming from the DEA’s Robert Bell.

“We do not have a war with (our own) citizens,” he said. “Or a war on people with drug problems.”

All wars have an end, he explained. Trying to stop the flow of drugs really never ends, he said.

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