The Mexican Connection

WASHINGTON, D.C: Federal agents say they have broken up a Mexican-Colombian drug ring, arresting dozens of people across the country Thursday in an operation code-named "Zorro-II." The government charged 29 with conspiracy, and an additional 136 were arrested. Attorney General Janet Reno said the operation is the first undertaken by the Drug Enforcement Administration that targets a cocaine ring's top organizational structure down to the street-level crack cocaine distributors. "It's the first case involving a Mexican distribution net of cocaine," says TIME's Elaine Shannon. "The Mexican cocaine distribution network represents a new trend in the past 2 or 3 years in which Mexicans, who have been paid in kind by the Colombian drug dealers for transporting Colombian cocaine across the Southwest border, established their own cocaine distribution network." Shannon reports that the arrests will affect distribution in Los Angeles, Chicago and parts of the Eastern seaboard where the Mexican connection is significant but it will probably not put a huge dent in the overall drug flow to the United States.