US DEA Raids 120 Cities, Arrest 750 Sinaloa Drug Cartel Members

A law enforcement official familiar with the sweep said the arrests culminated in a series of Drug Enforcement Administration raids Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in 120 cities. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because authorities were still gathering evidence.

Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce results of the crackdown on the Sinaloa drug cartel at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET.

Through "Operation Xcellerator," as it was dubbed, authorities say they seized more than $59 million in cash, 149 vehicles, three aircraft, and three ships used by the cartel. In terms of drugs, authorities confiscated more than 16,000 pounds of marijuana, 12,000 kilos of cocaine, about 1.3 million pills of Ecstasy, and significant quantities of other narcotics.

Federal authorities have arrested more than 750 people across the country in what they describe as "the largest and hardest hitting" operation to ever target the "the very violent and dangerously powerful" drug cartel known as Sinaloa, which is being blamed for much of the violence erupting along the U.S.-Mexican border, according to officials familiar with the operation.

According to the officials, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and divisions of the Department of Homeland Security have spent two years investigating and arresting people associated with the Sinaloa cartel, which they say has been smuggling drugs, laundering millions of dollars obtained illegally, and fueling a wave of violence along the Southern border. Combatting that violence was "the whole point" of the operation, one law enforcement official told Fox News.

"International drug trafficking organizations pose a sustained, serious threat to the safety and security as of our communities," Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to say at a press conference in Washington today, his first as head of the Justice Department. "As the world grows smaller and international criminals step up their efforts to operate inside our borders, [we] will confront them head on to keep our communities safe."

Federal and state narcotics-related charges have been unsealed against associates of the Sinaloa Cartel in California, Minnesota and Maryland. But the cartel's influence stretches even farther. Other organizations with ties to those cases have been busted by authorities in parts of Minnesota, New York, Arizona, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.

According to the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, 230 cities across the country are faced with some form of drug cartel or Mexican gang presence.

Through "Operation Xcellerator," U.S. law enforcement officials worked with counterparts in Mexico and Canada, where the Sinaloa Cartel is believed to have "distribution cells," which sell or transport the cartel's drugs.

The DEA says efforts continue to "stop the ruthless violence the traffickers inflict on innocent citizens in the U.S., Mexico and Canada."