2,200 arrested in U.S. crackdown on Mexican drug cartels

Federal authorities on Thursday announced the arrests of more than 2,200 people in 19 states on narcotics-related charges in the largest in a series of operations targeting violent Mexican drug cartels. The 2,266 arrests over the past 22 months were part of Project Deliverance, a joint effort with Mexican authorities that the Justice Department did not disclose until Thursday. Investigators from more than 300 federal, state, local and foreign law enforcement agencies seized 74 tons of drugs, 501 weapons and $154 million in cash, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced.

The crackdown, which included more than 400 arrests on Wednesday, targeted the transportation networks of Mexican drug organizations in the United States, especially along the drug-ravaged southwest border. Among those arrested was Carlos Ramon Castro-Rocha, described as a major heroin trafficker, who was detained by Mexican authorities May 30 and has been charged in federal courts in Arizona and North Carolina. The arrests extended to the Washington area, where 15 people were indicted in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on charges of running a cocaine trafficking network that funneled drugs from Mexico to Virginia and three other states, said U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride.