Fighting the midday heat, federal and state investigators ransacked a passenger bus stopped Thursday in Cobb County, eventually pulling more than 20 kilograms of narcotics from a secret compartment constructed below the seats.
The haul came after months of surveillance and cooperation between dozens of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to disrupt what one official described as a “sophisticated” Mexican drug-smuggling operation with Atlanta as its target market.
Earlier in the day, local police and sheriff’s deputies in Cobb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties and Winston-Salem, N.C., arrested 11 of 17 people indicted on charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine and money laundering. U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates praised the investigation leading to the arrests.
“These defendants are charged with using the metropolitan Atlanta area as their hub for the importation and distribution of millions of dollars’ worth of illegal deadly drugs,” she said. “As a result of the tremendous cooperation between federal agencies and local law enforcement partners, this drug ring is now out of business.”
Multiple agencies worked together since authorities received a tip in September that passenger buses were ferrying narcotics into the metro area. So far, about 1,000 pounds of narcotics have been taken from buses running a route from Mexico to metro Atlanta.
The investigation was led by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations unit.
Special Agent in Charge Brock Nicholson said great pains were taken to conceal the drugs. In the case of the bus seized Thursday, the drugs were hidden in a specially constructed compartment toward the back of the bus. Flooring was installed over the compartment and seats bolted on top of that.
“It wouldn’t be obvious to the passengers or the drivers and it would make it very hard for U.S. officials on the border to detect it,” he said. There were no passengers aboard the bus seized Thursday, and officials said the four drivers aboard were not arrested.
Nicholson said among those arrested in the metro area are four “local kingpins.”
“These aren’t just street dealers,” he said. “These are people who are running the operation.”
The bus was the fifth so far seized as part of the investigation. Earlier buses were stopped in Douglas and Carroll counties, Alabama and Texas, each time carrying drugs and often large sums of cash. Officials say they have collected about $700,000 in suspected drug money in the operation.
Drugs also have been seized from apartments in Cobb and Gwinnett.
Investigators say the following people were arrested Thursday:
- Atenogenes Alvarado-Delgado, 35, of Powder Springs;
- Jose Alvarado-Delgado, 35, of Austell;
- Reberiano Arroyo-Santana, 36, of Atlanta;
- Jose Cardenas-Garcia, 48, of Kennesaw;
- Alejandro Carmona, 63, of Arlington, Texas;
- Blanca Hernandez, 41, of Alpharetta;
- Alan Arnold Lopez, 24, of Mableton;
- Ranferi Pineda, 24, of Norcross;
- Yarely Pineda, 22, of Smyrna;
- Jose Antonio Pineda-Maldanado, 22, of Smyrna;
- and Miguel Salinas, 22, of Lawrenceville.
Authorities are continuing to search for Enrique Arroyo, 38, of Atlanta; Manuel Arroyo-Delgado Jr., 23, of Sandy Springs; Reynaldo Maldonado-Guipes, 56, of Cumming; Rufino Pineda-Perez, 48, of Lawrenceville; Rubi Torres-Aguilar, 44, of Austell; and a man identified only as “Mocha.”
The arrests were made largely without incident. An exception came in the arrest of a suspect in Norcross who attempted to get rid of his cache of meth and exposed the arresting officers to the drug.
“He was trying to throw it in a tub and wash it down the drain,” Nicholson said.
As a result, members of the Gwinnett County sheriff’s SWAT team were treated in a decontamination tent outside the emergency room at Gwinnett Medical Center.
About the Author
