Path to Justice

by Jim Dutton

  Nick thanked everyone for the extra hours and hard work. Nick looked at Ana and asked, “Where are we with tying Familia’s drug smuggling operation into Canada with the two money laundering operations, Morales and the Sakias?”

  “San Diego-based accountant Lester Sendow, who was at Yaak for the original drug distribution, may be involved in both money laundering operations. He’s the agent for service of process for Morales’ front companies, L&M Freight and Recycle Yard, and is the accountant who prepared the individual and corporate returns for the Sakias. Last week, IRS sent over Sakia-related tax returns for the past five years.”

  San Diego Detective Cipriani said, “The Sakia tax returns also list a Subchapter S corporation, World Food Imports, which was the name on the Missoula and Vancouver warehouses as well as the Tijuana warehouse where Pepe was kidnapped. We have an expert lined up who has 30 years of experience importing food from Mexico and Latin America for distribution in the United States and Canada. He’s reviewing the Sakia tax returns and other documents pertaining to their import businesses, Latin America Productos, and World Food Imports.”

  Ana added, “We’re confident we can establish these are front businesses that can’t begin to support the millions of dollars each month they are bringing into California from Mexico.”

  AUSA Josh Sterling said, “Visitor logs for the Canadian suspect’s brother in San Diego lock-up show three visits in September with Sergio Bustamente, a Familia enforcer, who was also with Lopez and Sendow delivering drugs in Yaak.”

  Nick added, “Follow up with the prison to get copies of the tape recordings of those meetings.”

  “Already requested.”

  “Pepe, do you have any more on the Familia’s drug operation?”

  “Sure do Nick. The cartel is mainly dealing in Mexican black tar heroin and a finer grade of marijuana than what usually comes across the border. First the marijuana. The Familia is getting greenhouse grown marijuana from the state of Sinaloa. According to my contacts with DEA, the growers are using grow lamps to improve their productivity and quality. The Familia is trying to carve out a market niche between the standard Mexican commercial grow, aptly called Mexican ‘crud’, that goes for around $500 a pound, and our domestic and Canadian grown marijuana, the high tech ‘prima bud’, which can sell for as much as $5,000 a pound. The Familia is undercutting the domestic high tech grow with their own high quality version. Informants say they’re selling it wholesale for around $2,500 a pound.”

  Nick said, “It’s like Walmart coming in and undercutting the local retail stores.”

  Pepe replied, “Nick, I know you do most of your shopping at Walmart and Target, but it’s more like Nordstrom coming in and undercutting boutique clothing stores.” Pepe continued, “The real profit for Familia is in the tar heroin. The poppies grow well in the coastal mountains of Jalisco. Over the last few years the black tar trade has really taken off along with a major increase in heroin overdoses suffered by teenagers and people in their twenties because they turned to black tar heroin as a cheaper alternative to opioid-based painkillers. The kids start by lifting a pill here and there from their parents’ prescription bottles. Then they start buying pills on the black market. It’s about $80 a pop for OxyContin. That gets way too expensive, so many try heroin where you can get high for as little as $10. Add these market forces to the fact that they reconfigured OxyContin a couple of years ago to make it more difficult to inject and snort. The combined effect—a heroin epidemic among our youth.”

  Ana said, “This is very serious, over 8,000 fatal heroin overdoses last year, almost triple the number a few years ago. Many law enforcement agencies rank heroin right up there with methamphetamine as the greatest drug threat currently facing Americans. With the increased supply of heroin coming from Mexico, other Latin American countries, and Southeast Asia, the purity is up when it hits the street, even after being cut with lactose, flour, or whatever. This increases the risk of overdoses, especially among users just out of rehab, who relapse. Their bodies can’t tolerate the higher doses they were taking before rehab.”

  Nick replied, “I get it Ana. Even more reason to bust these sons-of-bitches. How much is the Familia selling a kilo of tar for, Pepe?”

  “Between $20,000 to $30,000, depending on the supply route used, and how far the cartel has to transport the product in the States before distribution.”

  Nick said, “You can’t get much farther ‘in country’ than Yaak, Montana.”

  “Mario and Josh, I want you to work off of the tracker warrant and see if you can get a federal wire tap on the accountant and the college boy drug mule, Jim Mitchell. I want the taps up on their phones before we seize the drugs on a vehicle stop, a week from Thursday. 18 U.S.C. section 2516 allows a wiretap based on drug sales and federal money laundering. I know there are a lot of hoops to jump through to secure a judicial order, but it’ll be worth it. We can use California DOJ’s wire room to monitor the calls.”

  “Nick, you’re really infringing on my social life.”

  “A few long hours won’t hurt you Josh. You’ll bounce back with your lady friends. Remember, when one is away, the heart grows fonder.”

  Jerry said, “Biker Sue in Yaak talked about Lopez and the accountant driving a tricked-out black Escalade with tinted windows. A black Escalade matching that description was found parked behind the Missoula warehouse. Agents from Spokane tracked down Biker Sue and showed her photos of the Escalade. She told me it looked like the same car.”

  Nick said, “I bet there can’t be more than one tricked out black Escalade in Montana.”

  “We don’t even need to rely on your off-the-cuff opinion on Montanans car purchasing habits. The Escalade is in the name of L&M Freight, one of the companies owned by suspected money launderer Hector Morales,” said Pepe.

  “How would I look driving around in a tricked-out Escalade, smoking a cigar, after we seize it?”

  “Nick, you’ve already turned into an out-of-shape, old white guy. I suggest that if we seize a bicycle in this case, you ride that.”

  “Pepe you’re only saying that because you want the Escalade so you can put hydraulic lifts in, and bounce up and down as you drive it to a fiesta de quinceanera.”

  Ana broke in, “Now boys, let’s stay focused.”

  “Ana is right. By the way, Josh and Mario, how are the search warrants progressing for placing the trackers on the target vehicles?”

  Josh responded, “Great, we have a draft and have sufficient cause for five vehicles—the Escalade, the pickup truck surveilled from Yaak to Missoula, the Corvette and Range Rover in the driveway of the Missoula house, and accountant Sendow’s car, a BMW 633i convertible. I can get them signed by a judge tomorrow morning.”

  “Excellent,” replied Nick, “That will give us time to get the trackers placed for Thursday’s border surveillance. Jerry and Pepe, I want you to go back to Montana for the surveillance and placement of the trackers on the vehicles. Let the surveillance team watching college boy’s house put the trackers on the Corvette and Range Rover. I want you to put it on the pickup and Escalade personally.”

  “Okay boss man. We’ll take a flight out to Missoula tomorrow afternoon,” said Jerry.

  On the flight from Salt Lake City to Missoula, Jerry and Pepe decided they would go by the Missoula warehouse early in the morning and hope the Escalade was still parked in back. They had no trouble placing the tracker in the center of the undercarriage of the Escalade at about 6:00 a.m. Nobody was around, no guard dogs, and no surveillance cameras.

  They argued about how best to place the tracker on the perps’ pickup truck in a safe and timely manner. They figured young male drug dealers were always hungry and creatures of habit. They gambled on the perps stopping at Mountain Burgers again in Dixon on the way to Yaak. In any event, Jerry wanted to try a buffalo burger and Pepe was eager for a taste of a huckleberry shake.
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  They arrived at Mountain Burger just before noon to taste the local fare and wait for the pickup to appear. They parked at the side of the parking lot beside a beat up old truck with a flat tire that blocked them from casual observation. However, they still had a good sight line into the burger restaurant and to the main parking stalls in front. Sleet began to fall. “Oh, shit!” said Jerry and Pepe together. They knew what that meant. Crawling under a truck, with sleet, mud, and whatever else, was no picnic. Neither wanted to do the honors. They resolved the conflict in the civilized manner in which they always resolved their conflicts—rock, paper, scissors—sudden death. Each had a distinct strategy. Paper came to Jerry’s mind, maybe he was thinking it could give him some protection from the sleet. Pepe figured that Jerry was due to pick scissors because he had only done so twice out of the last ten times. When Pepe flipped a closed fist for rock on the count of three, he was astounded, Jerry’s paper hand enclosed his fist like a glove. Jerry said, “I have told you not to overthink things with that calculator brain of yours. Just go with the flow.”

  “I’ll be going with the flow alright, I’ll be immersed in sleet, mud and water.”

  The perps didn’t disappoint. The same two from last week parked the pickup in one of the front stalls. They ran through the sleet to enter the restaurant. They watched the perps at the counter, ordering food. Jerry nudged Pepe, “Show time.” Pepe hopped out of their vehicle, walked towards the perps’ truck, and pretended to stumble, dropping his wallet under the truck.

  Pepe was under the perps’ truck, beginning to place the tracker device when Jerry spoke in his earpiece, “Lay perfectly still, the white guy has exited the restaurant and is heading for the truck.” Pepe laid perfectly still, face down, breathing in mud.

  After about 20 seconds, hearing nothing, Pepe whispered, “Jerry, what’s going on? I don’t hear anything.”

  “Oh, false alarm, it wasn’t the perp after all.”

  “You son-of-a-bitch Jerry, I promise you’ll get yours.”

  “Lighten up Pepe. Put on the tracker and let’s get out of here.” Pepe was fuming all the way to the local gas station where he changed out of his clothes.

  The next morning, Jerry and Pepe received a telephone briefing from ASAC Springer letting them know that the drug transaction went down just as it had the week before, two duffels from the Montana side for one duffle from the Canadian side. All the same players and everything was on video and audio. The audio picked up a gem. Once again, it was the big mouth college kid. He said, “Can you handle 50 kilos of tar? I’ve been lugging a bag half that weight for over a month. Another 25 kilo bag would balance me on my border stroll.”

  One of the Canadians responded, “Shut the fuck up. That’s not for us to decide.”

  “Cool your jets, just a little Yankee initiative.”

  Jerry called in to Nick. Nick said, “Write your reports on the plane ride back to San Diego, have a good weekend and get your asses in here at 8:00 a.m. sharp on Monday morning so we can plan how to seize the drugs on a traffic stop this coming Thursday. Also, Jerry, it was funnier than hell to have Pepe swallowing mud on a false alarm while placing the tracker, but it wasn’t a good idea to compromise the mission for even 30 seconds for a good laugh.”

  “Hey, how did you find out about that?”

  “Just remember, Uncle Nick knows all.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Starting just before eight on Monday morning, the team began to filter into the conference room. The ones with a semblance of taste, Ana and Mario, were gripping their Starbuck lattes, while the more marginal types, Nick, Pepe, and Jerry, were drinking the house brew from dirty coffee cups. The new age refined one, Josh, was sipping on some exotic tea blend. Rona was also present to keep everyone focused and let them know about the document protocol.

  Nick, with a fire up the troops exuberance, said, “All is going great. We’re ready to take down some drugs. We need to go over how we’re going to execute the vehicle stop on college boy Mitchell when he’s on route to the next delivery on Thursday.”

  Josh said, “I’ve been looking at the vehicle stop, detention cases. I know the overall plan is to stop the pickup on a traffic violation and then have a drug sniffing canine circle the truck to alert on the drugs inside. We have to be careful how we do it to avoid running afoul of the Fourth Amendment. We have the violation lined up—past surveillances of the pickup show that the right rear brake light is out. We can get the Montana Highway Patrol to pull the pickup over as soon as they get on Interstate 90, outside of Missoula. Working in tandem with the Highway Patrol, will be a separate canine unit.”

  “Why the two car protocol?” asked Ana.

  “We want to make the stop without revealing in the reports the background information we have on their drug distribution network. We don’t want to scare the cartel off. The fact that we are really stopping the pickup because we know drugs are in there—making a “pretense” stop based on a traffic violation, is fine with the Fourth Amendment because it’s objectively reasonable for law enforcement to make a traffic stop, irrespective of their true subjective intent for stopping the vehicle. It’s set out in the 1996 U.S. Supreme Court case, Whren v. United States.”

  “Okay law school professor, enough with the case law,” said Jerry.

  “Let Josh finish, this is important. Josh and I will be fighting all their suppression motions in court. We need to get this right,” said Nick.

  “So the stop isn’t a problem. Where it gets tricky is bringing in a drug sniffing dog for a routine traffic stop. There’s a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, out of the Eighth Circuit, that challenges the admissibility of drugs found in a car where the driver was detained for an extra eight minutes after the traffic violation was written for a canine to perform a drug sniff around the car. The driver contends it was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment to extend the traffic stop beyond the time it took to write the citation. That’s why it’s imperative that the canine unit pull up right after the stop in order for the dog to circle the pickup to make a positive alert for drugs while the traffic officer is still writing a ticket and checking I.D. The United States Supreme Court in Illinois v. Caballos upheld a positive alert which occurred simultaneously with the traffic stop.”

  “Excellent Josh. Also, make sure we arrange for a top of the line drug sniffing dog. We want impeccable credentials as to its training and field performance. The defense at trial will be attacking everything, even Fido. It’s also a good idea to pull over the pickup when it gets on the Interstate. This can add some cause for the belief that drugs are in the truck because interstate freeways are known to be drug transportation corridors. Additionally, the fact that the registration of the truck is in the name of L&M Freight out of Imperial County, and not in college boy’s name, will add to the probable cause,” said Nick.

  “The title to the truck to Hector Morales’ money laundering business is a real sweet tie in,” said Mario.

  By the way Mario, have we run dogs by the cash deposited by the Morales or the Sakia organizations?” asked Nick.

  “Sure have. Over the last two weeks, agents have monitored the segregation of three separate cash deposits into three Morales accounts in three separate banks along the border. Each time the cash was hidden among other cash in the vault. Jack, a shepherd, who was only trained on alerts to controlled substance stashes, not on currency, alerted each time.”

  “Why does it matter that Jack wasn’t trained on currency?” asked Ana.

  “Where a dog is trained on currency, he’ll hit on currency that has minute amounts of drug residue on it. In certain areas of the country, like Los Angeles, well over one-half of the currency in circulation has some residue on it. So, the argument is that a dog alert on currency doesn’t mean anything because most of the currency has drug residue. Where a dog is trained just on narcotic stashes, he’ll only hit on currency where the
controlled substance has come in recent contact with the currency.”

  Mario continued, “We did the same thing at three separate border banks with the currency deposited by the Sakia couriers. Same results, same dog.”

  “Mario, you’re on a roll. How is the wiretap application going?” asked Nick.

  “We’ll have the order by Thursday for the accountant’s cellphone and landline phone and college boy Mitchell’s landline. We aren’t even bothering with Mitchell’s cell because that will be seized at the time of the bust. Mitchell’s indiscreet comment at the last delivery, about lugging a 25 kilo bag of tar heroin to the Canadian border for the last month, really helped.”

  “I want you and Josh to catch a flight out on Wednesday to oversee the take down operation in Missoula.”

  “Before I let you go, the most important member of our team, Rona, has something to say.”

  “Thanks Nick. We’re gearing up. We’re generating a lot of paperwork and there’ll be much more to come. Everything goes to me first. Once we scan the documents into the computer, our Bates stamp program will number each page of each document electronically. I keep the originals, and index the same for easy access. You can work off the copies that I’ll provide. That way nothing slips through the cracks and every page will be accounted for when we turn discovery over to the defense. If you have any questions, or just want to pick up some candy corn, come on by my office.”

  Nick added, “I just started working on my annotated exhibit list. I’ll refine it for use at trial or any pre-trial hearing. As I go through the documents and other evidence, I’ll list the tentative exhibits in categories and give each category a group of numbers, like records from a particular bank will be pre-marked one to twenty. The first line of the description for each exhibit will later be used for the exhibit list for court and the defense. In my annotated list, I’ll continue to describe the important aspects of the exhibit and how it may relate to other exhibits. This expanded description, of course, isn’t given to the court or the defense. It acts like my short hand “Bible” at trial. Rona will make copies for you.”