I-Team: Feds breaking up heroin operation with Chicago ties

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A major Mexico-Chicago-Philadelphia heroin operation is being broken up federal drug agents, as 37 people are arrested in Chicago and on the East Coast.

DOCUMENT: Laredo indictment
DOCUMENT: Laredo defendant chart

The federal indictment of the Laredo gang may have been unsealed Tuesday in Philadelphia, but authorities believe major players were in the heroin operation posted in Chicago, Joliet, Aurora and Rockford.

The nine individuals charged were in here are among 37 facing money laundering, conspiracy and drug counts. Included in those charged is a Joliet couple said to be connected to the Laredo brothers, allegedly moving millions in drugs and cash.

From Facebook, the family photo of Enoc Laredo, his wife Priscilla and their two young children in Joliet, tells a different story about the couple than what is written in the federal indictment.

According to the charges, they are among the Laredo relatives and operatives who move multi-kilo quantities of heroin from Cuernovaca Morelos, Mexico, to the United States, mostly to Chicago and Philadelphia, smuggling the drugs in car batteries and under vehicle bumpers, even in shipments of canned produce.

"Extract the produce, usually the gallon size or the quart size cans, put the heroin or the other drug in there, and put the produce or liquid back inside and seal it up,' said Dennis Wichern, Chicago DEA.

Many of the charges against them relate to money laundering.

Earlier this year the ABC7 I-Team found that 20 billion in drug money flows out of the U.S. each year; that Chicago and the suburbs are major hubs for stashes of cash, drug money hidden anywhere that works, from boxes of laundry detergent and religious statues, to hi-tech compartments, called "traps," concealed in vehicles.

Agent X: "We've seen tractor trailers where the whole entire back of the tractor trailer is built on hydraulics, enabling the entire bed of the tractor trailer to lift up in order to put in narcotics or U.S. currency."I-Team's Chuck Goudie: "Under a false floor?"Agent X: "Correct."Goudie: "Just like the movies?"Agent X: "Just like the movies."

Tuesday night, the new special agent in charge of the Chicago Drug Enforcement Administration field office says the Laredo organization used murder, arson, assault and kidnapping, to protect its illicit business.

"It goes go hand in hand, Chuck. The drug game is very violent," Wichern said.

Authorities say the Laredo organization also supplied to street crews in Camden, New Jersey, New York City and Atlanta.

Defendant Omar Flores from Rockford is charged with funneling drug proceeds through a used car business there that investigators say provided vehicles for smuggling.