JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office counter-narcotics trafficking operation dubbed “Jacob’s Ladder” has exposed the presence of one of the oldest global criminal organizations in the world.
Seventy-four kilos of cocaine with an estimated street value of more than $7 million. Enough fentanyl to potentially kill one million people, 74 pounds of marijuana, and more than a pound of MDMA, commonly known as Molly and Ecstasy, were all seized during the operation.
During the seizure of those drugs, nearly a dozen people were arrested.
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“This now incapacitated criminal group was responsible for receiving and distributing multiple kilograms of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine monthly here in Jacksonville. This group sourced its illegal narcotics from Mexico and Texas through the Mexican drug cartel, the Gulf Cartel,” Sheriff T.K. Waters said.
Three of the trafficking suspects identified as Estaban Martinez, Danial Garcia, and Damien Rojas were singled out by investigators as having direct ties to the deadly Gulf Cartel.
The Gulf Cartel is a Mexican criminal organization founded in the 1930s that smuggled alcohol into the U.S. during prohibition before controlling gambling houses, prostitution rings, and car theft networks, and then moving on to global drug trafficking.
News4JAX Crime and Safety Analyst Tom Hackney said it’s not every day that Jacksonville police capture suspected drug traffickers with direct access to the Gulf Cartels.
“That’s what’s nice to see about this operation that found itself to really get some to the key players with this and you hope it’s high enough on that hierarchy to do something to impact them,” Hackney said.
According to a Drug Enforcement Administration Cartel locator map, the Gulf Cartel is known to mainly operate within Texas along the Gulf Coast. They also have a minor footprint in New Orleans and a greater presence in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Operation Jacob’s Ladder revealed the Gulf Cartel was sending truckloads of drugs worth millions of dollars into Northeast Florida. Their presence in Florida is significant because, for years, the Sinaloa Drug Cartel and Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) have been known to be the two main Mexican drug cartels operating in the Sunshine State. Both are at war with each other and the Gulf Cartel is a rival to the Sinaloa Cartel. Hackney said this could be a recipe for a deadly turf war.
“It all comes down to the potential for violence and victims who are unwilling and unwitting participants to that. We’ve seen this before. It manifests in the streets and with innocent victims,” Hackney said.
Drug traffickers want to protect their products and the money that comes from drug trafficking, which is why it was no surprise that an assortment of firearms was also seized.
JSO’s announcement came 30 days after the Gulf Cartel’s former leader, Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, 57, was released from a federal prison.
Cardenas-Guillen served 25 years behind bars for drug trafficking and threatening U.S. Federal agents. Following his release from prison, U.S. immigration officials handed him over to Mexican authorities to face justice for homicide and illegal gun possession. His nickname was Friend Killer.