National Highway System                                   HIDTA Locations  (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area)


       

                                     

"In 1990, 'Operation Convoy' was created to target drug transportation organizations that use commercial vehicles to traffic drugs. Operation Convoy conducts long-term surveillance undercover operations and other enforcement activities aimed at transportation organizations. Much of the investigative work conducted through Operation Convoy occurs at truck stops, cargo transshipment areas, and motels. In addition, Operation Convoy began training DEA special agents to drive large commercial motor vehicles during undercover investigations. The DEA also assists state agencies with investigations following seizures of commercial vehicles on the nation's highways."  (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration)




With over thirty years of investigative experience, eighteen of it as a private investigator, Dan Sanchez has travelled the southwest conducting major traffic crash investigations for various law firms.  On a hot Summer's day, Dan was returning home to Albuquerque, from Arizona, after an especially troublesome investigation near the New Mexico state line; in which, a Navajo lady, (her clan matriarch), was killed.  A comment made by Sgt. Humetewa, of the Arizona Highway Patrol, rang true - and he couldn't un-ring the bell!  There had been an inordinate amount of traffic fatalities involving semi trucks, along a short stretch of Interstate 40, between Holbrook, Arizona and the New Mexico state line.

In time, Dan documented major traffic crashes along I-40, from Winslow, Arizona to Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Using state highway maps and colored pins a definite pattern developed so he extended his project to include the entire southwest.  David Lane, a well-known attorney from Denver, had recommened Dan to a friend, to investigate his daughter's death in a "suspicious" crash, along Interstate 25, in southern Colorado.  The girl's father, Conrad Barstow, was a supervising attorney with National Insurance Company.  During this investigation Dan learns about database programs, used by insurance companies, and gets access to records involving thousands of crashes, throughout the country.

He began working under a percentage agreement as a consultant, with National Insurance Company, and using the database programs opened libraries of information; all at his fingertips - in a laptop computer provided by National.  He discovers a pattern of truck drivers who possess a commercial driver's license, but also have motorcycle endorsements on their license.  Conrad has a California insurance agent look into the ownership of trucks involved in accidents, and Dan eventually learns that another pattern emerges; many of the trucks are owned by shell companies which are owned by motorcycles clubs.

Dan is contacted by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF&E), who he happens to know from his law enforcement days, and with the permission of two attorney's he's actively working on related cases for; and at Conrad's encouragement, he begins working in conjunction with ATF&E and DEA. They've been documenting drugs, in cases all over the country, and learned from a snitch that the drugs are being transported by semi trucks; but they haven't figured out how, or by whom.  The information they need, it turnes out, is in the hands of Dan Sanchez!

In a meeting with Assistant U.S. Attorney, Robin Clark, he's introduced to DEA Agent Lupe Preciado; he's also introduced to an agent with the National Security Agency.  Apparently, while tracking a shipment of what they thought was narcotics; Lupe's partner becomes ill and goes to the hospital, where he dies, after being contaminated with the poison - Ricin.  Through wiretaps, and other means, the NSA has learned that the Ricin came from Los Angeles and made its way to Gallup, New Mexico - where the trail went cold; except for the fact that a couple of motels, in Gallup, had traces of Ricin.  Both motels are owned by Arab-Americans who have been under surveillance by the feds.  The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, (OMI), reports to the FBI that two cases they processed resulted from toxic poisoning, by Ricin.  OMI also reports receiving a inter-agency notice from California, that a Mexican truck driver was found dead in Needles, California; the cause of death... Ricin poisoning.  In a conversation with a friend who works at the Indian Hospital, in Gallup, Dan learns they too, had a toxic death; the man was from an area on the Navajo Reservation known as Torreon, in the Eastern Agency section of the reservation; just a stone-throw, as the crow flies, from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

More to come...