This story features violent images. F or 14 months , the first thing Dave Herrod, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, did every morning was boot up his laptop and begin tracking a 43-foot yacht with Dock Holiday painted on the stern. In the summer of 2005, the DEA had intercepted a conversation in which members of a Mexican drug cartel known as the Arellano Félix Organization discussed buying a yacht in California. Herrod and his colleagues studied the classified ads in yacht magazines and determined that the Dock Holiday was the boat the AFO members wanted. DEA agents then managed to get on board and install tracking devices before the sale went through. That's when Herrod started watching the boat on his laptop. Since the early 1990s, the Arellano brothers—the inspiration for the Obregón brothers in the movie Traffic —had controlled the flow of drugs through what was perhaps the single most important point for illicit commerce in the world: the border crossing from Tijuana to San Diego. Much of the AFO's success derived from its predilection for innovative violence. The cartel employed a crew of "baseballistas" who would hang victims from rafters, like piñatas, and beat… Read full this story
- Mexico Extradites 6 Key Criminals Linked to Drug Cartels to US Over Week - Reports
- Bloodbath at prison football match between rival drug cartels leaves 16 dead
- Another inmate is killed and eight others are injured in Mexico's Cieneguillas prison - days after 16 died in a riot after a soccer match between rival drug cartels turned deadly
- Flashback: Iran’s Soleimani Hired Mexican Cartel Associate to Assassinate Saudi Ambassador on U.S. Soil
- Mexican Gulf Cartel-Connected Smugglers Ram U.S. Border Patrol Vehicle in Texas
- Police chief arrested over Mexico family massacre
- Police Chief from Mexican Border State Charged in Cartel Massacre of U.S. Mormon Family
- New Details Emerge About American Family Murdered In Mexico With Shocking New Arrest
- Mexican officials say three more people have been arrested in connection with the La Línea cartel massacre of a US Mormon family in November
- ICE Finds Tunnel Under Arizona Border, Seizes 200 Pounds of Drugs
How DEA Agents Took Down Mexico's Most Vicious Drug Cartel have 355 words, post on www.theatlantic.com at December 17, 2015. This is cached page on SEO. If you want remove this page, please contact us.