Jim Kouri
Law Enforcement Examiner
8/20/2011
Federal authorities are warning several state and local police departments about the increased drug trafficking activity of Iraqi nationals now living in the United States.
Police officers near San Diego, California, on Thursday nabbed more than 50 members of an Iraqi gang of drug traffickers who were operating out of a social club in El Cajon, CA.
The El Cajon Police Department on Friday announced their apprehension of dozens of alleged drug traffickers, linked to an Iraqi-American gang. The police dragnet, dubbed “Operation Shadowbox,” targeted the Iraqi social club in the southern California town.
Many of the suspects fled their homeland after being threatened by al-Qaeda and other extremists, and some are suspected of being affiliated with the Chaldean Organized Crime Syndicate, an Iraqi gang based in Detroit, home to the nation’s largest Chaldean community.
Police were tipped off by the social club’s neighbors and some of the club members’ spouses became informants about the Iraqis’ criminal activity.
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