Officers say a Mexican drug cartel based a cocaine operation in Austin.
The two-story home at 2216 Billy Fish Street in Manchaca looks like any other in the neighborhood. Police say that's the point. The people who lived here did not want anyone to know what was going on inside. Officers are calling it a "stash house" for a major Mexican drug cartel.
"You live in a neighborhood like this -- you have people who move into neighborhoods like this, you don't expect them to be drug dealers,” said neighbor Peter Otte.
It's one of 13 homes in Austin, Pflugerville and Hays County that local and federal law enforcement agencies raided last week. It was the conclusion of a six year investigation.
"What we found them to be doing is smuggling large amounts of cocaine from Mexico into Texas and onward,” said Greg Thrash, Drug Enforcement Agency representative.
Greg Thrash, with the DEA, revealed Monday in a news conference that members of the Gulf Cartel based a cocaine operation here in Austin, trafficking it as far north as Illinois. He first learned of it six years ago.
"They'll peak their head up and they'll go back down. This one went back down for a couple of years,” said Thrash.
In February of this year, he says the participating agencies learned of two shipments of cocaine headed this way.
"We mobilized the community here in Austin and focused on these two shipments. As a result we executed multiple arrest warrants, multiple search warrants. There were large amounts of cocaine that were seized,” said Thrash.
Fourteen kilos of cocaine were seized in all, plus $400,000 of money and assets. Seventeen cartel members are now in jail. Pictures show how members got away with it for so long hiding guns, drugs and cash in unassuming homes like the one by Otte.
"I have two boys. They're out here playing every day from the time school lets out until it gets dark. I hate to think there was drug activity going on across the street,” said Otte.
Three more cartel members have warrants out for their arrest. All are being held without bond.
