Feds put 2 big drug groups out of business

By MIKE MORRIS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Two major Mexican drug trafficking organizations in metro Atlanta have been dismantled, Justice Department officials announced Friday. The federal indictments and arrests followed a two-year investigation dubbed “Operation Four Horsemen.”

More than 400 kilograms of cocaine and $21 million in cash have been seized in the Atlanta area during the past year, according to Patrick Crosby, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Atlanta office.

Eighteen people were charged with various drug and related money-laundering offenses in indictments handed down by a federal grand jury.

Ten of the defendants have been arrested so far, including eight who were from Mexico, one from Texas and Jimmy John Silva, 30, of Atlanta.

All but one of the defendants were arrested in Atlanta, according to Crosby. The remaining eight are believed to be in Mexico, he said.

Crosby said both groups operated in a similar fashion, receiving multi-kilogram shipments of cocaine that arrived in tractor-trailers from Mexico, then shipping U.S. currency back to Mexico in trucks and other vehicles.

The largest of the cash seizures occurred on Dec. 7, 2008, when more than $8 million was seized during a traffic stop of a tractor-trailer on I-85 in Troup County.

The most recent seizure was on Aug. 4, when agents seized over $5 million concealed inside of a bus parked at a hotel on Paces Ferry Road in Vinings.

Friday’s announcement came a day after authorities announced that an Ellenwood man was part of an international drug trafficking ring that made over $1.8 billion in cocaine sales.

Kiley Murray, 37, was one of 43 alleged drug leaders whose indictments were announced earlier this week.

U.S. Marshals and the Henry County Police SWAT Team stormed Murray’s home on Scarborough Road in Ellenwood Wednesday morning as part of a federal search warrant.