HAZLETON, Pa. – Authorities have charged 40 people, including suspected illegal immigrants and gang members, with bringing cocaine from New York to this eastern Pennsylvania city, already a flash point in the immigration debate.
Officers had arrested about 33 members of the group, which is accused of distributing $31 million worth of the drug over three years, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said Thursday. The investigation is ongoing, Corbett spokeswoman Shonna Clark said Friday.
Investigators tapped phones and listened to hundreds of conversations between the suspected ringleaders and their customers, according to a criminal complaint. Undercover officers made numerous drug buys and worked with confidential informants to make the case, prosecutors said.
The ring hauled in more than $200,000 per week, authorities said.
Hispanic immigrants began settling in Hazleton in large numbers several years ago, lured from New York, Philadelphia and other cities by cheap housing, low crime and the availability of work in nearby factories and farms.
Last year, Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta pushed through a tough law that targeted landlords who rented to illegal immigrants and businesses that employed them. Dozens of municipalities around the nation copied the measure, but a federal judge struck it down in July as unconstitutional.
Hazleton, with about 30,000 residents, is 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation_world/20070907_ap_policeimmigrantspartofpacokering.html
It’s a good beginning!
Too little, too late.
The time to do something was ten years ago.
Those 40 people arrested have already been replaced 10 times over by now.
Lou Barletta for president!
It’s great. Just proving what he’s said all along. The corruption too many of these people bring with them is destroying cities. They did a sting here and caught alot of gang members who have left nothing but distruction in their wake and yet they still cry about being “targeted” and how they’re all just “good” people. “Good” people don’t do this kind of thing.
Making that kind of money I’m sure they weren’t picking tomatoes as a diversion or cleaning toliets or mowing lawns.
I always liked that guy!!! Kudos to Pa.
Here is my opinion, I am glad they arrested those 40 people but there are many, many more. I know cause I live in the Hazleton area.
My concern is, A few weeks ago, Congressmen Kanjorski, said at a town meeting, he is not sure that Hazleton has, as big of, an illegal problem, as it has a drug problem.
So, now this big drug bust pops up, are they trying to cover up the illegal problem. In my opinion, they go hand in hand.
Every town has drugs, but since the illegals moved in, it really got out of hand.
It would be great if we had Mayor Barletta for President, but then again, I don’t want to lose him as Mayor.
I wonder if the La Raze and ACLU will take these cases pro- bono, and say that these illegals are being discriminated against, saying the illegals would not have been arrested if they were not illegal.
Tancredo, Ron Paul, and Hunter have the most conservative voting records on immigration.
http://www.betterimmigration.com/candidates/2006/prez08_gop2.html
http://www.betterimmigration.com/candidates/2006/prez08_gop3.html
http://www.betterimmigration.com/candidates/2006/prez08_gop1.html
Of these three, Ron Paul has the best chance of winning the Primary election.
Paul’s campaign has almost 5 times as much money to spend as Tancredo.
http://query.nictusa.com/pres/2007/Q2/C00432914.html
http://query.nictusa.com/pres/2007/Q2/C00431619.html
The NAFTA Superhighway might be another significant threat to American borders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBmFrYWPoG8
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul349.html