1 MIN AGO: FBI & DEA TAKE DOWN Cartel Trucking Empire — 273 Arrests, 52 Ton Meth & 250 Trucks SEIZED

The Drug Enforcement Administration has arrested over 600 people in a massive operation."

"...making 16 arrests and seizing hundreds of kilos of fentanyl."

"...federal agents in New York City making the largest meth bust in recent history."

"...reveal details of major busts involving one of the most dangerous and powerful cartels in Mexico."

On a dusty stretch of highway outside San Antonio, Texas, a routine traffic stop was about to unravel a $2 billion conspiracy. It was a Tuesday afternoon. A Texas Highway Patrol unit signaled a refrigerated semi-truck to pull over for a standard commercial vehicle inspection. The truck belonged to Southwest Logistics, a company with a pristine reputation, DOT

certification, and contracts with the biggest retailers in America. The driver was calm. He handed over his commercial driver's license and the cargo manifest. It listed 20 tons of fresh produce, tomatoes, and lettuce destined for a distribution center in the Midwest. The paperwork was flawless.

The truck was clean. To the human eye, this was the American supply chain in action. But the K-9 unit didn't care about the paperwork. As the handler walked the dog around the trailer, the animal sat down near the rear axle to passive alert for narcotics. The troopers were confused.

They opened the doors and saw nothing but crates of vegetables. They moved the crates. Nothing. They checked the walls. Nothing. But dogs don't lie.

They brought in a density scanner. The reading on the floor of the trailer was off. It was too thick. Using heavy tools, officers pried up the metal floorboards. Beneath the refrigerated cargo space, concealed in a custom-engineered void, were plastic-wrapped bundles vacuum-sealed to perfection.

It wasn't insulation. It was 100 kilograms of pure methamphetamine. The driver was arrested, but during the interrogation, he looked genuinely terrified. He swore he didn't know. He was just a driver delivering lettuce.

Andrew, this was a six-month operation called Project Python.

It got tons of drugs off the street, heroin, meth, fentanyl, crossing the border from Mexico."

And the DEA agents watching from behind the glass began to realize he was telling the

truth.

This wasn't a rogue driver smuggling a few kilos on the side. This was a structural engineering marvel designed to fool federal inspections, and that single truck was just one of 250 in the fleet. The DEA had just stumbled upon the largest trucking-based drug operation in American history. Welcome back.

To understand how a cartel hides 50 tons of meth in plain sight, you have to look at the company they built, Southwest Logistics. This wasn't a shell company that existed only on paper. It was a real, profitable business operating for 15 years. They had 500 drivers, a massive maintenance yard in Texas, and legitimate contracts to deliver fresh produce to Walmart, Costco, and Kroger.

They were a pillar of the logistics industry, but hidden inside this legitimate operation was a dark secret. DEA Intelligence, led by Special Agent Maria Rodriguez, spent 18 months dismantling the illusion. They discovered that Southwest Logistics wasn't infiltrated by the cartel. It was owned by them.

The business model was brilliant and terrifying. Roughly 150 of their trucks were purely legitimate, hauling fruit and vegetables 24-7 to generate clean revenue and build a safety record. But the other 100 trucks were… priority units. These specific vehicles were taken to a cartel-owned garage for modifications. Mechanics installed hydraulic compartments beneath the floorboards, accessible only by

removing specific produce crates in a precise sequence. The operation, codenamed Highway Harvest, revealed that these trucks were moving 50 to 200 kilograms of meth on every trip. They traveled America's highways, mixed in with legitimate traffic, delivering poison to distribution hubs in Chicago, Atlanta, and New York before reloading with legal cargo to return home.

The drivers were part of a two-tier system. Most were innocent, hardworking truckers who had no idea they were driving on top of a felony. But a select group, the priority drivers, received coded messages, route deviations, and massive cash bonuses to look the other way, while cartel crews loaded the hidden compartments.

"...1.7 million pills, meth, and more taken off the streets."

Fox 31's Nicole Fierro got an up-close look and is joining us live with the wild backstory behind this discovery as well, Nicole. Over two years, this fleet moved 52 tons of methamphetamine and generated over $300 million in illicit profit, all while maintaining a perfect safety rating with the Department of Transportation. Agent Rodriguez knew that taking down one truck wouldn't stop them.

The cartel would just write it off as a cost of doing business. To kill the beast, she had to cut off the head. She needed to take down the entire fleet, the headquarters, the mechanics, and the executives all at the exact same time. But raiding a company with trucks scattered across 48 states is a logistical nightmare. If one driver tipped off the headquarters, the evidence would be shredded, the hard drives

wiped, and the cartel leadership would vanish back into Mexico. The date was set for October 20th. 400 federal agents from the DEA, FBI, and Highway Patrol were mobilized. They tracked every single priority truck via GPS. They positioned SWAT teams outside the corporate HQ in Texas and surveillance units at the distribution warehouses.

At 4 a.m., the order was given. The largest simultaneous trucking raid in U.S. history was a go. The clock hit 4 a.m., the order was given. The largest simultaneous trucking raid in U.S. history was a go. The clock hit 4 a.m. on October 20th. The command centers in Washington D., C., and El Paso went live. Across the United States, from the humidity of Florida to the deserts of Nevada, the traps snapped shut.

This wasn't just a raid. It was a synchronized shutdown of a logistics empire. On Interstate 10, a priority unit truck moving westbound was illuminated by the flashing lights of three unmarked DEA SUVs. The driver, a ten-year veteran of the company, pulled over, assuming it was another inspection. He didn't know that his name was already on a federal indictment. As he stepped out of the cab, he was met by agents in tactical gear.

He was handcuffed against the side of his own truck while a specialized team began dismantling the floor of his trailer. Minutes later, they pulled out 50 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden beneath a pallet of avocados. This scene played out simultaneously on highways in 12 different states. Drivers were pulled from sleeper berths at truck stops.

Others were intercepted at weigh stations. The coordination was absolute.

Cigars are down, cocaine and meth is on the rise in our area. We first report on the increase this summer, and this bust here is proof.

The cartels are getting creative in how they're smuggling the drug into New York City. In the first hour alone, federal agents secured over 50 trucks loaded with contraband. But the heart of the operation was in Texas. At the Southwest Logistics corporate headquarters, the scene looked like a military invasion. An FBI SWAT team breached the front glass doors of the office building. This wasn't a cartel safehouse with barred windows.

It was a modern corporate facility with glass walls and executive suites. The executives' men who wore expensive suits and attended Chamber of Commerce meetings were pulled from their desks and thrown to the ground. They had spent years believing that their legitimate business front made them untouchable. They thought the $50 million in legal revenue bought them immunity. They were wrong.

Agents moved room to room, seizing servers, financial records, and employee files. They found the Shadow Ledgers, the encrypted files that tracked the illegal profits separately from the legitimate hauling revenue. Simultaneously, a second tactical team hit the company's maintenance depot, the Modification Garage. This was the engineering center of the operation.

Inside, agents found mechanics in the middle of welding a false floor into a refrigerated trailer. These weren't corner shop mechanics. They were fabricators paid cartel wages to turn American trucks into smuggling vessels. They were arrested with welding torches still in their hands. The tools and blueprints seized at the garage confirmed the DEA's worst fears.

The concealment methods were industrial-grade, involving hydraulic lifts and climate control bypasses designed to fool X-ray machines. By sunrise, the scale of the takedown was becoming clear. The arrest count climbed rapidly. 273 individuals were in custody. This included the CEO, the logistics coordinators who routed the drug shipments, the mechanics

who built the traps, and the priority drivers who knowingly hauled the poison. But amidst the chaos, a different tragedy emerged. Federal agents detained nearly 500 drivers in total. As they processed them, investigators realized that nearly 150 of them were innocent. These were men and women who had simply applied for a job, driven their assigned routes, and delivered their produce.

They were pawns in a billion-dollar game. They stood on the side of the highways, watching their trucks being towed away, realizing their employer was a criminal enterprise. The DEA verified their innocence, returning their commercial licenses, but their livelihoods were destroyed in an instant. The physical seizure numbers were staggering.

As teams across the country unloaded the trucks and raided the distribution warehouses, the pile of drugs grew. It wasn't just a few kilos here and there. It was 52 tons of methamphetamine. 52 tons. To put that in perspective, that is enough product to supply the entire addict population

of a major city for a decade. The street value exceeded $2 billion.

"...the Midwest distribution warehouse here in Bensonville, seizing what authorities say amounts to millions of dollars of illicit vaping and e-cigarette products."

In the warehouses, agents found the drugs vacuum-sealed and hidden inside crates of bananas, buried under lettuce, and concealed within the walls of the trailers. The cartel had turned the American food supply chain into a delivery service for death. The major retailers, Walmart, Costco, Kroger, were notified immediately. Corporate security teams were horrified. Their distribution centers had been used as unwitting transfer points.

The trusted trucks pulling into their docks had been carrying lethal cargo. Contracts were terminated instantly. Southwest Logistics was blacklisted from the industry, before the sun set. The company that had generated $300 million in illegal profit was effectively erased from the map. But for the 273 people in handcuffs, the nightmare was just beginning.

The charges filed in the Western District of Texas weren't just for drug trafficking. Prosecutors unlocked the ultimate weapon, RICO. As the dust settled on the nationwide raids, the battleground shifted from the highways to the federal courthouse in the Western District of Texas. The physical dismantling of Southwest logistics was complete, but the legal dismantling would prove to be even more ruthless.

The administration and Franklin police have arrested 27 people as part of a bust of a major drug trafficking operation. Federal prosecutors weren't treating this as a standard drug trafficking case. They unlocked the nuclear option of federal law enforcement, the RICO Act. By designating Southwest Logistics as a continuing criminal enterprise, prosecutors charged the entire corporate structure as a single criminal entity.

This meant the CEO sitting in his glass-walled office was just as liable for the 52 tons of methamphetamine as the driver who physically hauled it. The defense team for the executives attempted a strategy that had worked in the past. They argued that Southwest Logistics was a legitimate company infiltrated by rogue employees. They pointed to 15 years of tax returns and contracts with Walmart and Kroger as proof of their innocence.

But the DEA had prepared for this lie. During the trial, prosecutors unveiled the shadow ledgers seized from the corporate servers. These documents proved the executives didn't just know about the drugs, they had budgeted for them. The records showed that the legitimate trucking revenue, $30 million annually, was merely the operating cost to cover the $300 million in

drug profits. The jury saw emails discussing priority unit maintenance schedules that aligned perfectly with cartel shipment dates. The legitimate business defense collapsed in real time. The sentencing phase was a historic moment for the American transportation industry. The federal judges showed absolutely no mercy.

In their view, these defendants had done something worse than selling drugs. They had betrayed the public trust. They had taken the American supply chain, the system that feeds families across the nation, and weaponized it. The company executives received life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge noted that their clean corporate image was an aggravating factor, not a mitigating

one. They had used their respectability as a shield for a cartel, and for that, they would die in federal prison. The priority drivers, the men who knowingly hauled the poison, faced a grim reality. Those who refused to cooperate received sentences ranging from 20 to 40 years. Even those who flipped were handed 15 to 25-year sentences. The message was clear.

He's been charged with 12 felonies related to drug trafficking.

Michael Blake Turner was arrested after the newly formed Guilford County Narcotics…

If you use your commercial license to move narcotics, you will likely never drive a truck again. Then came the mechanics, the engineers of the conspiracy, who welded the hidden compartments. They received sentences of 15 to 30 years. Their skills, once used to build undetectable traps, were now the reason they would spend decades behind bars.

However, amidst the sea of guilty verdicts, the justice system worked to protect the innocent. Of the nearly 500 drivers initially detained, the DEA verified that 150 were truly innocent. These were the unwitting mules drivers who simply picked up a load of lettuce and drove it to a warehouse, never knowing they were sitting on top of 100 kilos of crystal meth. The federal government took the rare step of publicly clearing their names. Their commercial licenses were returned, and agents even assisted some in finding new employment.

It was a crucial distinction. The war was against the cartel, not the American trucker. While the human cost was being tallied, the financial destruction of Southwest logistics was absolute. Under federal asset forfeiture laws, the government seized everything. The fleet of 250 trucks, the trailers, the maintenance equipment, the corporate headquarters,

and the bank accounts totaling over $100 million were confiscated. The company didn't just file for bankruptcy. It was erased. The trucks were stripped of their logos and sold at auction. The proceeds were redirected to victim compensation funds and law enforcement budgets.

The very tools used to poison the community were now funding its recovery. The shockwaves of this case hit the boardrooms of America's largest retailers. Walmart, Costco, and Kroger were horrified to learn their distribution centers had been used as transfer points for a global drug ring. In the weeks following the verdict, these corporations overhauled their carrier vetting processes.

The Southwest Logistics Rule became a new industry standard, demanding deeper audits of trucking partners beyond simple safety records. The trucking industry itself underwent a transformation. The technology race between smugglers and law enforcement accelerated. Following the revelations of the sophisticated hydraulic traps, the Department of Transportation — DOT — began deploying advanced mobile scanning units capable of detecting density

anomalies in trailer floors without opening the doors. Ground-penetrating radar sensors and X-ray trucks became more common at weigh stations. The hidden compartment that had fooled inspectors for two years was now a known vulnerability. Special Agent Maria Rodriguez, the architect of Operation Highway Harvest, received the highest commendations the agency could offer. Her investigation had done more than seize drugs. It had exposed a systemic vulnerability in the national infrastructure.

By taking down Southwest Logistics, the federal government sent a message that echoed from the cartels in Mexico to the corporate offices in the U.S. "...there is no cover deep enough. You can build a legitimate company. You can run it for 15 years. You can pay a legitimate company. You can run it for 15 years. You can pay your taxes.

The indictments come as overdose deaths reach record levels. CBS 2's Andrea Klein-Thomas has more.

This is nearly 40 pounds of what's believed to be-

You can hide 50 tons of product in the most expensive, high-tech compartments money can buy. But if you cross the line, the federal response will not be a fine. It will be annihilation. Southwest Logistics is gone. Its headquarters is an empty shell.

Its executives are inmates. Its trucks are driving for someone else. The operation proved that the American supply chain is a battlefield. The enemies are not just hiding in the shadows. Sometimes, they are driving in the lane right next to you, wearing a uniform and waving a clipboard. But as long as there are agents willing to dig into the ledgers, canine seconds willing

to trust their noses, and prosecutors willing to use the full weight of the law, the highways will be defended. This is what happens when a cartel thinks it can buy its way into the American economy. They find out that justice isn't for sale, it's enforced. If you believe that companies used as fronts for drug trafficking should face the death penalty of total corporate dissolution, hit the Like button right now. Subscribe to the channel to see the next investigation into the hidden wars being fought on our streets,

Subscribe to the channel to see the next investigation into the hidden wars being fought on our streets, because the trucks are still rolling, and the hunt never ends.