Busted: Drug Ring That Used FedEx

Making scores of arrests, federal drug agents have broken up a Jamaican-led narcotics ring that allegedly bribed FedEx drivers in a scheme to distribute 121 tons of Mexican marijuana to East Coast markets.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said Memphis-based FedEx's top officials fully cooperated with the 18-month investigation, which has led to the arrests of 101 people, including 22 FedEx employees. Rod Benson, assistant special agent of the DEA's special operations branch, said he expected an additional 10 or 15 arrests.

Agents said the arresting officers also seized two tons of marijuana in West Coast warehouses, one under control of the Mexican group and another controlled by the Jamaican traffickers. They also seized 18 firearms and more than $4 million in cash and assets.

Donnie R. Marshall, acting DEA administrator, said that the operation marks the first time that marijuana smugglers have used a single, private, overnight-express delivery service as a distribution network.

Marshall said the smuggled marijuana was shipped in more than 4,000 cartons and boxes, some of them sprinkled with household detergents to try to mask the smell of the plastic-wrapped marijuana from drug sniffing dogs. Overall, he said, the shipments had a retail value of more than $140 million.

"They thought they had built a foolproof system," said Raymond W. Kelly, commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service.

Robert Bryden, FedEx's security chief, said the company was asked to become involved after a suspicious package was reported by a FedEx employee and found by the DEA to contain marijuana.

That package and many others seized over nearly two years bore forged shipping labels, believed to have been provided by three Federal Express customer service representatives, who will also be charged, DEA agents said.

One FedEx security officer is also believed to have been involved, they said.

DEA officials in Washington and court papers filed by the U.S. Attorney's office in New York City alleged that bribes of up to $2,000 a week were paid to targeted FedEx drivers.

"This drug trafficking operation, aided by corrupt employees of an international shipping company, was staggering in its size and scope," said U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch.

Her office said that if convicted, the defendants face maximum 40-year prison sentences and $2 million fines.

DEA officials in Washington said that so far arrests have occurred in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Georgia and Florida.

One of the world's largest drug organizations, the Arellano Felix gang, based in Tijuana, Mexico, allegedly supplied the marijuana to Jamaican traffickers in Southern California.

"This was predominantly a Jamaican organization based in Los Angeles," Marshall said.

The Jamaicans used FedEx trucks to move the marijuana to company aircraft, which flew it to airports on the East Coast. From there it was moved by FedEx trck to Jamaican confederates in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Georgia and Florida for sale to drug users.

The DEA said it had no information that any FedEx pilots were involved.

The agents said that once the packaged marijuana reached a FedEx warehouse in New York or New Jersey it would be loaded on a FedEx truck. Somewhere on the truck's normal delivery route it would be met by another vehicle and the marijuana transferred, the agents said.

They said that because false labels were used, the marijuana ring also avoided FedEx shipping charges, which they estimated at more than $500,000.

The agents said that when one FedEx driver was arrested at his New Jersey home Thursday morning agents discovered $20,000 in cash in a shoebox under his bed.