DEA in El Paso seizes over 900 pounds of meth worth $1.65 million
EL PASO, Texas-- The Drug Enforcement Administration is celebrating the early success of their Operation Crystal Shield. The operation was announced in February, as the DEA revamped their efforts to stop the illegal trade of methamphetamine.
In less than one year since announcing Operation Crystal Shield, the DEA has seized 28,560 pounds of methamphetamine with a street value of $43.3 million. Equally as important, in that time frame the DEA has arrested nearly 1,840 suspects.
In the DEA's El Paso Division, which includes portions of Texas and New Mexico, 919 pounds of meth were seized with an estimated value of $1.65 million.
“Close to 180 arrests in this area alone, and while drugs are important -drugs don’t move without the human element. So it does take that person in order to be able to dismantle the organization. You can seize drugs all day long, but the important thing is to take the people out,” DEA El Paso Special Agent-in-Charge Kyle Williamson said.
The DEA is looking to hurt cartels and dealers by affecting their bottom line. The loss in revenue totaling nearly $50 million dollars is one the DEA feels the cartels will not be happy about.
“Thats money that is not going back to the cartels and that is where you are hurting them because they do operate as a business and they distribute drugs to get money," Williamson said.
Operation Crystal Shield was launched to target nine methamphetamine hubs across the county to include El Paso, due to it's proximity to the border and Interstate-10.
“You can access the entire interstate system in the United States, so pretty much from the point from El Paso you can you can get anywhere in the United States quickly and be on the interstate,” Williamson said.
The DEA plans to keep their successful trend of arrests and seizures through out the rest of the year. They tell ABC-7 that Operation Crystal Shield is here to stay. At the same time, they hope users and dealers think twice about methamphetamine in the first place.
"We are now charging distribution resulting in death. So if a person distributes drugs and a person dies as an overdose death, we take that as a murder," Williamson said.
