Whack-a-mole - or not: Questioning Arizona's Sinaloa Gang Bust

Big moles or little moles? Good question. (See the original AP article about the supposed "success" of Operation Xecellerator)

Questioning Arizona's Sinaloa Gang Bust: "U.S. authorities announced the break up of an Arizona gang said to be working for Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, though how far this will really be a blow for Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Loera's organization is a matter of debate.

Officials expressed satisfaction at the arrest of 27 members of the Jesus Valencia Rodriguez Organization, capturing more than half the group's known membership.

“This operation has effectively dismantled the Arizona-based transportation and distribution cells of the Jesus Valencia Rodriguez organization,” said Tom Horne, Arizona’s attorney general. ...

In the past, U.S. authorities have played up connections between Americans arrested in drug sweeps and their more notorious suppliers in Mexico, despite a enormous geographical and operational distance between the two. For instance, Otis Rich was arrested in 2009 as a part of Operation Xcellerator, which was hailed as a “crushing blow” against the Sinaloa Cartel, with 761 people arrested across the U.S. ...

As the Associated Press (AP) reported in 2010, when asked about his ostensible backers in the mountains of Mexico, Rich responded, "Sina-who? I don't know anything about them guys."

According to the AP, this was typical. Many of those whose arrests were hailed as an unprecedented strike against Guzman and other Mexican capos were low-level American pushers whose place in the global narcotics supply chain was so far removed from Sinaloa that they had no idea that it even existed."