The cartel exclusively used nicknames in most cases, its members didn’t even know one another’s real names - they were simply Gordito, Primo, Cuatro, Viejo.Īfter a few minutes, the truck pulled out from the hotel and slowly headed back toward the Steak ‘n Shake. Moore’s colleagues had wiretapped 11 phones and had spent so many hours listening to the drug traffickers’ coded Spanish conversations that they knew all the leadership’s tics: The wholesaler called Juanito had a goofy, childlike giggle the courier called Tata was sometimes the butt of their jokes. In previous years, a significant bust might be a dozen kilos now the cartel was bringing in 200 kilos a month. It was by every measure the biggest cocaine operation Detroit authorities had ever seen. With a sprawling network of distributors, couriers, wholesalers and street dealers, the organization had pumped thousands of kilos of cocaine from the Mexican border through Arizona safe houses and into Detroit. Special Agent Jeff Moore and his team in the Detroit field division had spent months investigating a local branch of the Sinaloa cartel, the world’s most notorious and powerful drug-trafficking ring, led by Joaquín Guzmán, known as El Chapo. They believed it was carrying a major shipment of cocaine.
From on-ramps and overpasses, they watched traffic flash by as they tried to spot the truck. officers in unmarked cars were scattered along a 70-mile stretch, from Kalamazoo to Jackson, Mich.
The Lincoln pickup truck with Iowa plates was hurtling down Interstate 94, headed for Detroit.
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