Philly Daily
ran my weekly Crime Beat column on the U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia forming a
Homeland Security Task Force.
You can read the column via the below link or the following
text:
Davis: The Feds strike back — U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia announces Homeland Security Task Force - Philly Daily
Donald Trump has been called a law & order president. He has
declared cartels and transnational criminal organizations terrorists, sent the
National Guard into high-crime cities, blown drug boats out of the water, and he
has declared the deadly drug fentanyl to be a weapon of mass destruction.
And
President Trump has signed into law the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF)
initiative, which was established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the
American People Against Invasion.
According
to the U.S. Justice Department, the HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership
dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational
criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in
the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the
HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards
identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes
committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and
instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places
special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child
trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all
available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from
the United States.
Here in Philadelphia, David Metcalf, President Trump’s U.S.
Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, announced the establishment
of HSTF Philadelphia earlier in December.
Metcalf called the task force a focused federal effort dedicated
to eliminating criminal cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs)
that fuel fentanyl overdoses and deaths, inject violence into the communities,
facilitate human trafficking, and exploit vulnerable communities across the
city of Philadelphia and the surrounding areas.
According
to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, HSTF Philadelphia is part of the Department of
Justice’s nationwide campaign to dismantle TCOs, following the President’s
Executive Order and the Attorney General’s directive establishing Homeland
Security Task Forces across the country.
“Philadelphia
faces unique challenges as a major metropolitan hub and port city. At the
center of those challenges is the fentanyl crisis and the violence that
accompanies it. As cartels pour deadly drugs into this district that do
immeasurable damage, they’re also fueling gun trafficking and violent gang
activity that destabilize neighborhoods and put families at risk,” the U.S.
Attorney’s Office stated. “From drug corners in Kensington to illegal firearms
transported through the interstate corridor, HSTF Philadelphia will confront
these threats head on, uniting federal, state, and local resources to identify,
prosecute, and eliminate the criminal networks responsible.
“The
U.S. Attorney’s Office will bring the most serious charges available —
racketeering, continuing criminal enterprise, terrorism-related statutes, and
major narcotics conspiracies — to dismantle TCOs from top to bottom.
Prosecutors will also pursue human trafficking and smuggling cases, especially
those exploiting minors, and will strip cartels of their financial power by
seizing and forfeiting illicit assets. Where violence threatens communities,
the office will move swiftly to secure detention and bring offenders to
justice.”
U.S.
Attorney Metcalf added, “Transnational gangs bring fentanyl, violence, and
human misery into Philadelphia and southeastern Pennsylvania. Let me be clear:
they will find no safe harbor here. My office will use every federal statute,
every investigative tool, and every ounce of our authority to prosecute them,
dismantle their networks, and put their leaders behind bars for as long as the
law allows.”
HSTF
Philadelphia is co-led by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI, in
coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Partner agencies include the Drug
Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The
U.S. Attorney’s Office noted that this announcement builds on prosecutions
already under way in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Recent indictments
have charged defendants allegedly tied to transnational criminal organizations
and foreign distribution networks pouring millions of dollars of fentanyl,
cocaine, and other illegal drugs through Philadelphia:
·
Humberto Gutierrez-Orozco, 37, a Mexican national illegally in the United States,
was charged with trafficking over $10 million worth of cocaine from Mexico,
after he attempted to smuggle these deadly drugs into and across the United
States, including to Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, as alleged in court
filings.
HSTF investigators conducted a covert operation after agents
identified a tractor-trailer with 440 kilograms of cocaine secreted inside. As
part of that operation, Gutierrez-Orozco was arrested, and the drugs were
seized.
If convicted, Gutierrez-Orozco faces a maximum sentence of life
in prison and a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in prison.
·
Four
defendants have been charged with allegedly trafficking bulk amounts of
fentanyl, in related cases.
Victor
Bueno-Fermin, 54,
a Dominican national illegally in the United States, and Yesenia Duarte-Paulina, 35, of the Dominican Republic, were charged with trafficking
689 grams of fentanyl, and heroin. Bueno-Fermin was also charged with illegally
reentering the United States after a prior deportation. Jose Rondon,
25, of New York, was charged with trafficking 865 grams of fentanyl, and
cocaine, and Manuel Antonio Sanchez-Santos, 51, of the Dominican Republic, was
charged with trafficking 1.7 kilograms of fentanyl.
Their indictments followed coordinated drug raids earlier this
year in North and Northeast Philadelphia by HSTF agencies and partners. As
detailed in court filings, HSTF investigators seized over three kilograms of
fentanyl in the raids, which equals millions of individual doses of this
dangerous drug.
If convicted, each of these defendants faces a maximum sentence
of life in prison and a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in prison.
·
Francis
Rondon-Caceras,
32, a Dominican national and the alleged leader of a large-scale fentanyl
trafficking organization, was charged along with seven other individuals with
distributing millions of dollars' worth of fentanyl into Philadelphia, as well
as Western Pennsylvania.
As alleged in the indictment, this criminal organization
utilized packaging houses in Philadelphia to process bulk amounts of fentanyl,
which members of the organization mixed with adulterants, including the horse
tranquilizer xylazine, in order to expand their profit margins and to “boost”
and extend the drugs’ effects.
As further alleged in court filings, HSTF partners caught the
defendants trafficking over 10 kilograms of fentanyl, and over $185,000 in drug
proceeds was seized during the investigation.
Donald
Griffin, 32; Francisco Quezada, 41; Alexi Quezada, 36; Juan Fransella-Jose, 36; Alexander Rodriguez
Crouset, 38; Victor Jose Herrera Castillo,
44; and Juan Ortiz, 35, were charged in the indictment,
along with Rondon-Caceres. Except for Griffin, of Allegheny County, Pa., the
defendants in this case are Dominican nationals illegally in the United States.
If convicted, each of these defendants faces a maximum sentence
of life in prison and a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in prison.
The
U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that these cases demonstrate how federal
prosecutions can both disrupt the flow of deadly drugs into our region and
eliminate criminal drug trafficking organizations operating here.
“Our
neighborhoods deserve to be free from the grip of cartels and gangs that
traffic in drugs, guns, and people,” Metcalf said. “HSTF Philadelphia is about
more than prosecutions — it’s about protecting families, restoring safety, and
ensuring that no community in our district is left vulnerable to the reach of
transnational criminal organizations.”
Paul
Davis’ Crime Beat column appears here each week. He is also a frequent
contributor to Broad + Liberty and Counterterrorism magazine. He can be reached
via pauldavisoncrime.com.
