Pubdate: Wed, 25 Jul 2001
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2001 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: David Heinzmann
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

COCAINE SEIZED ON ITS WAY TO CHICAGO

U.S. Agents Follow Drugs From Texas

A 189-kilogram shipment of cocaine intercepted by federal agents in Texas 
was transported to Will County this week in an undercover operation that 
resulted in the arrests of men from Texas and Berwyn, the U.S. attorney's 
office said Tuesday.

The bust was the latest in a series of large seizures of Chicago-bound 
drugs along Interstate Highway 55.

Cesar Uriel Gatica-Martinez, 33, of McAllen, Texas, and Claudio 
Tino-Martinez, 21, of Berwyn, were arrested Monday night at a storage 
facility in Plainfield as they allegedly transferred 16 boxes of cocaine 
from a pickup truck to a van, according to a criminal complaint filed 
Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

Both men are being held pending a hearing Thursday, said Randall Samborn, a 
spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago. Prosecutors are 
seeking to have the men sent to Texas for prosecution, Samborn said.

The drug shipment ended up in Plainfield after an undercover agent posing 
as a drug runner met with Gatica-Martinez in Palmview, Texas, on Sunday 
afternoon, according to the court documents. The undercover agent agreed to 
drive the cocaine from Texas to Chicago.

The agent drove away with the drugs but then flew the shipment to Chicago 
with agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration. The agent met 
Gatica-Martinez and Tino-Martinez on Monday in a McDonald's parking lot at 
I-55 and U.S. Highway 30. They went to a nearby public storage facility, 
where the agent began transferring the drugs to Gatica-Martinez's van. DEA 
agents and Will County Gang Suppression Unit officers then arrested the 
men, according to the complaint.

The seizure comes after a July 7 seizure of 220 kilograms of cocaine in 
Bolingbrook. Twin brothers Juan G. and Juan C. Munoz, 18, were arrested and 
charged with possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. They are being 
held on $10 million bond each in the Will County Jail.

In March, 14,000 pounds of marijuana on its way from Texas to Chicago was 
seized from a semi-truck parked in a lot at I-55 and Illinois Highway 53 in 
Romeoville.
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