Baltimore Crime Beat: Drugs, Baltimore and Mexican cartels - Baltimore crime news: Police, courts and police stories in the city and central Maryland

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February 3, 2011

Drugs, Baltimore and Mexican cartels

Anyone who wants to know how drugs get into Baltimore, read Sun reporter Justin Fenton's story out of federal court -- "Mexican cartel on trial in Baltimore."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter M. Nothstein told jurors Tuesday that during the course of the trial they would hear things "you've only seen on TV and in movies."

Nothstein couldn't have been more right. A mobile home packed with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine crossing the country. Fine dining and fine hotels. A suitcase filled with $275,000 in a Baltimore hotel room. Another $335,000 in the trunk of a car. A corrupt cop and a stolen watch.

The details are in the story, and it's a tale using words not too often associated with Baltimore's street corner drug dealers. Here, we get words like "cartel" and "Mexico" and undercover DEA surveillance outside a Little Italy nightclub.

Said one suspect, according to the authorities: "My work is selling drugs. I'm a businessman."

Posted by Peter Hermann at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Confronting crime, Courts and the justice system, Crime elsewhere, Gangs

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About Peter Hermann

Peter Hermann started covering news for The Baltimore Sun in 1990, first in Anne Arundel County and, starting in 1994, reporting on the Baltimore Police Department. In 2001, he was assigned to Jerusalem as the Baltimore Sun's Middle East correspondent. He returned in 2005 as an assistant city editor overseeing crime coverage. In 2008, Peter returned to the beat as a daily reporter and blogger. A recent BBC report featured him in a segment on the harsh realities of covering crime in Baltimore.

Coverage will focus on crime trends, problems in neighborhoods in the city and elsewhere, profiles of victims and police officers and try to offer readers a fresh perspective on one of the most vexing issues facing Baltimore and its future.

Contributing to this blog is Justin Fenton, who joined The Sun in 2005 and has covered the Baltimore City Police Department and the criminal justice system since 2008. His work includes an investigation into Cal Ripken Jr.’s minor league baseball stadium deal with his hometown of Aberdeen, a three-part series chronicling a ruthless con woman, coverage of the killing of five Amish children at a schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., and a job swap with a British crime reporter to explore differences in crime-fighting. A special report looking into how city police handle rape cases led to sweeping reforms that changed the way sexual assaults are investigated in Baltimore. He was recognized as the best reporter in Baltimore by the City Paper in 2010 and by Baltimore Magazine in 2011.

Follow @phscoop, @justin_fenton on Twitter