National Drug Intelligence Center   North Texas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis 2008   June 2008

Dallas/Fort Worth and Oklahoma City Market Areas

Dallas/Fort Worth and Oklahoma City are the two most significant drug markets in the North Texas HIDTA region. These cities serve as key transshipment and distribution centers for illicit drugs available in the HIDTA region and throughout the United States, particularly in southwestern, midwestern, and eastern drug markets.

Dallas/Fort Worth

Overview

The Dallas/Fort Worth area is a national-level transportation and distribution center for cocaine, marijuana, ice methamphetamine, and heroin in and outside the North Texas HIDTA region. Mexican DTOs control the transportation of wholesale quantities of these illicit drugs to the area for distribution. They further transport illicit drugs from the area to major domestic drug markets throughout the country for distribution.

Production

The production of illicit drugs in the Dallas/Fort Worth area is generally limited to crack cocaine conversion, methamphetamine production, and cannabis cultivation. NSS data indicate that law enforcement officers seized only three powder methamphetamine laboratories in Tarrant County (which includes Fort Worth) and no laboratories in Dallas County (which includes Dallas) in 2007, a decrease from 12 laboratories seized in those counties in 2006 (three in Tarrant County and nine in Dallas County). (See Table 2 in Drug Threat Overview section.) Most of the laboratories were capable of producing small, personal-use amounts of methamphetamine, some of which could have been used for limited distribution.

Transportation

Mexican DTOs smuggle multikilogram to multiton quantities of illicit drugs into the Dallas/Fort Worth area, usually overland in private and commercial vehicles, for distribution. Recent law enforcement reporting suggests that some DTOs are instructing transporters to drive their drug loads across the U.S.-Mexico border and into the Dallas/Fort Worth area without making any additional stops along the way. For example, some drug traffickers transport marijuana, methamphetamine, and cocaine through the Eagle Pass and Del Rio POEs directly to the Dallas area before any distribution of the drugs occurs.

Mexican DTOs also smuggle significant quantities of illicit drugs to and through the Dallas/Fort Worth area using bus lines. For example, in February 2008 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents seized 2 pounds of heroin that was concealed in the soles of boots packed inside a suitcase that was being transported on a bus by a passenger from Fort Worth.

To Top      To Contents

Distribution

Mexican DTOs are the principal wholesale distributors of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Asian DTOs are the principal distributors of MDMA and hydroponic marijuana. According to NSS data, law enforcement officers in Dallas County seized less cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine in 2007 than in 2006, while law enforcement officers in Tarrant County seized increased quantities of all illicit drugs, with the exception of methamphetamine quantities, which decreased significantly. (See Table 4.) The seizure totals in Dallas County followed a trend that was similar in the 21 North Texas HIDTA counties--declining seizure totals, with the exception of marijuana seizure totals, which increased dramatically overall during these two periods.

Table 4. Drug Seizures by County in the North Texas HIDTA, in Kilograms, 2005-2007*

Source: National Seizure System.
* Data as of March 20, 2008. NSS data is based on voluntary reporting and may not include all seizures occurring in the North Texas HIDTA region. Subtotals and totals may not agree with individual county seizure amounts as a result of rounding.
NR - None reported.

Despite the overall decline in heroin seizures, law enforcement officers in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area report an increasing presence of white heroin. For example, in January 2008 officers with the Sheriff's Office in Denton County (directly north of Dallas and Tarrant Counties), along with those working for the Lewisville and Dallas Police Departments, U.S. Marshals Service, and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrested three illegal immigrants and seized 1 kilogram of white heroin during a traffic stop--a unique incident because white heroin has rarely been seized in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and a significant one because of the recent increase in the amount of white heroin available in the area.

Local independent distributors as well as members of street gangs, prison gangs, and OMGs comprise a significant portion of the midlevel and retail-level drug distributors operating in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The Dallas Police Department Gang Unit documented 87 street gangs and 3,470 gang members who were active in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in 2007. Bloods, Crips, and East Side Homeboys--which is the largest Hispanic gang in the Dallas area and one of the most violent--are some of the most prominent street gangs that distribute illicit drugs in the area; however, many other gangs also distribute illicit drugs, usually at the retail level. (See Table 5.)

Table 5. Drug Distribution by Gangs in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area, 2008

Source: Law enforcement interview data, January through April, 2008.

Some dealers in the area are devising unique ways to conceal drugs for retail distribution to avoid detection by law enforcement. For example, in late 2007 Dallas area law enforcement officers discovered that some gang members were concealing powder cocaine packaged in small plastic jewelry bags inside Icebreakers breath mint containers (unbeknownst to the product's manufacturer). Police officers were unaware that suspected drug dealers were using the containers for illicit purposes; as a result, drugs that were concealed in Icebreakers containers and carried on the persons of suspected drug dealers were overlooked in drug-related incidents.

To Top      To Contents

Drug-Related Crime

Local street gangs that distribute illicit drugs contribute to much of the crime that occurs in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. For example, in July 2007 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Dallas, in coordination with many other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, arrested 121 violent members of 27 local street gangs during a 7-day action under the Operation Community Shield program.⁸ Most of the arrested gang members were from Fort Worth (47 members) and Dallas (45 members); the remaining gang members were from suburbs located throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Many of those arrested were members of significant street gangs that distribute illicit drugs in the HIDTA region, such as Asian Boyz, East Side Homeboys, Latin Kings, Mexican Mafia, MS 13, and Puro Tango Blast. (See Table 5.) Most were charged with drug-related and other crimes, including robbery, aggravated assault, and murder.

Gang members and other criminals arrested on drug trafficking violations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area frequently are in possession of firearms, which they typically carry to protect their drug supplies and distribution territories. Many obtain firearms and weapons by burglarizing area businesses, private homes, and vehicles. For example, in November 2007 law enforcement reporting indicates that 17 weapons, including high-powered assault rifles, were stolen from a pawnshop in Mansfield (near Fort Worth); officers also reported a March 2008 burglary of 19 handguns from a gun shop in Fort Worth. Moreover, at least two additional burglaries involving the theft of firearms occurred at Fort Worth area businesses from July 2007 through March 2008. Additionally, stolen and illegally purchased guns, particularly assault rifles, are smuggled to Mexico for use by DTO enforcers, an increasing problem along the border.

Abuse

Over half of the adult drug-related treatment admissions in the 15 Texas counties located in the North Texas HIDTA region occurred in Dallas and Tarrant Counties each year from 2005 through 2007. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), the combined number of powder cocaine-, heroin-, and marijuana/hashish-related treatment admissions in Dallas and Tarrant Counties increased overall from 2005 through 2007, while the combined totals for crack cocaine- and amphetamine/methamphetamine-related admissions decreased during the same period. The increasing availability of heroin (Mexican black tar heroin and white heroin) in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and the addictiveness of the drug most likely contributed to the almost 30 percent increase in heroin-related admissions in Dallas County from 2005 to 2007. (See Table 6.)

Table 6. Adult Drug-Related Treatment Admissions in Texas Counties in the North Texas HIDTA, by Drug, 2005-2007*

Source: Texas Department of State Health Services.
* North Texas HIDTA Texas Counties totals have omitted admissions in any drug category with a frequency of less than 10 as a result of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act confidentiality requirements; therefore, actual totals are slightly higher than those represented.

Abuse of "cheese" heroin--a combination of Mexican black tar heroin and over-the-counter cold products containing diphenhydramine--declined significantly in the Dallas area in the first half of fiscal year⁹ (FY) 2008 as compared with FY2007. The decline was attributed to intense law enforcement efforts to educate the public, particularly teenagers and young adults, on the risks of using this drug combination. Officers with the Dallas Police Department arrested 16 students from North Dallas area high schools from August 2007 through December 2007, down from 82 arrested during the same period in 2006. However, the second half of FY2008 saw evidence of a resurgence in abuse. During April and May 2008, monthly cheese-related arrests in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) rose from single digits to double digits, with 11 and 17 arrests, respectively. Whether this is an indication of a resurgence in abuse or simply the use of better detection techniques by DISD police is undetermined. Fortunately, there has not been a reciprocal rise in overdose episodes or overdose deaths. It should be noted that in May 2008 a Dallas County jury convicted a 20-year-old man of providing cheese heroin that caused the 2007 death of his girlfriend's 15-year-old brother. The subject was convicted of delivery of a controlled substance to a child causing death, for which he received an 18-year prison sentence.

To Top      To Contents

Illicit Finance

The Dallas/Fort Worth area is a primary banking and financial center, making it an attractive area for drug money laundering. The well-developed infrastructure that consists of commercial enterprise, transportation networks, and international finance within the area enhances its appeal to legitimate businesspeople as well as to DTOs, criminal groups, and other drug traffickers who are attempting to launder the significant profits that they generate through their illicit activities.

Drug traffickers in and outside Dallas/Fort Worth routinely use the area as a staging location for bulk quantities of cash and monetary instruments that they generate through their illicit activities. Traffickers based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area typically consolidate drug proceeds generated from the distribution of illicit drugs in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and many other drug markets, including New York City and Chicago, at the same stash locations they use for drugs prior to smuggling the proceeds in bulk to Mexico for eventual laundering or repatriation.

Drug traffickers in Dallas/Fort Worth commonly launder drug proceeds through front and shell companies, electronic wire transfers, and structured bank deposits; they also purchase luxury vehicles, jewelry, and residential properties. Law enforcement reporting indicates that some traffickers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area use drug proceeds to purchase properties that they then quickly resell for cash and, potentially, a substantial profit. According to Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) officials, property "flips" typically involve fraudulent appraisals, falsified loan documents, and inflated buyers' incomes.

Drug traffickers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area also are increasingly using stored value cards to launder illicit drug proceeds. Legitimate and criminal users of these "virtual money" cards store funds on the cards in amounts not exceeding $2,500; however, a complicit issuing authority can waive the dollar limit, making these cards attractive to money launderers. Stored value cards can be accessed through the Internet, and no names are associated with the cards, thereby providing a degree of anonymity. The owner of a card can authorize another individual to use the card to withdraw funds without requiring any type of identification at the time of the transaction.

End Notes

To Top      To Contents      To Previous Page      To Next Page

To Publications Page      To Home Page

End of page.