Feds: Cartel wanted N.H. drug route

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CONCORD, N.H., Sept. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. authorities say three men arrested in Spain were high-level members of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel trying to set up a cocaine-shipping route to New Hampshire.

At a news conference Tuesday in Concord, N.H., U.S. Attorney John Kacavas and Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston, described a three-year investigation that took agents and Boston police officers from New England to Mexico and Spain, the Boston Herald reported. They said undercover agents met with men working to set up a route that would move drugs from Mexico to Europe and then to New Hampshire.

Kacavas acknowledged the arrests by themselves would not cripple the cartel.

"We've taken the approach that this is going to be death by 1,000 cuts," Kacavas said. "This is one of those cuts."

DesLauriers said the three suspects were arrested when they were intercepted trying to test the route with a 750-pound load of cocaine.

Kacavas said he is seeking the extradition of Rafael Humberto Celaya Valenzuela, Samuale Zazueta Valenzuela and Manuel Jesus Guttierez Guzman. Guzman is the cousin of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman-Loera, reputed head of the Sinaloa cartel.