U.S. hits Mexican drug cartel with big raid

By Matthew Bigg

ATLANTA (Reuters) - U.S. officials arrested 175 people and seized tens of millions of dollars in cash and drugs during a raid of the U.S. network of a top Mexican cartel, the Drug Enforcement Administration said on Wednesday.

The arrests came over two days in an operation code-named Project Reckoning that confiscated more than 35,000 pounds (16,000 kg) of cocaine, more than 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of methamphetamine and $60 million in cash, the agency said.

The street value of the cocaine could be some $320 million, according to prices cited by DEA agents in news reports.

The 15-month operation targeted the Gulf cartel, which is based in northeastern Mexico and is one of the two main Mexican organizations shipping cocaine to the United States on behalf of Colombian drug lords.

"It will make a huge dent in the overall drug flow in that it will take out the middle level and we hope the upper level of one of the substantial cartels that are operating in Mexico," said U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

"There are other cartels that are operating as well but this is one of the major ones and one of the most violent ones," he told a news conference in Atlanta during which guns and packets of seized money were put on display.

Project Reckoning targeted several parts of the Gulf cartel's operations including transportation and cocaine flows into Atlanta, Dallas and Houston.

Authorities also focused on drug trafficking from Mexico through the United States and then to Europe via Rome. Europe has become a growth market for cocaine trafficking because of the dollar's decline against the Euro, officials said.

The DEA also unveiled an indictment against Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and two other Gulf cartel chiefs believed to be living in Mexico for conspiracy to import drugs into the United States.

The cartel, whose original members deserted from the Mexican army, rose to power by acting as a middleman for Colombian cartels seeking to export drugs into the vast U.S. market.

The raid was the latest episode in the decades-old U.S. "war

on drugs" that attempts to stem the flow of a multibillion-dollar global trade.

The fight is a major component of U.S. policy toward Latin America, but critics argue Washington should be putting more resources into cutting consumption by treating addicts at home.

(Editing by Michael Christie and Xavier Briand)