When the federal government recently announced it had stopped 10,000 pounds of fentanyl from entering Arizona and Southern California from Mexico, the special name attached to the counternarcotics initiative was somewhat confusing: Operations Blue Lotus and Four Horsemen.
But this kind of cryptic labeling is not uncommon in federal law enforcement, where agents like to show they are serious about tackling drug traffickers and other criminals by giving their efforts an intriguing code name. Preferably, the moniker sounds pretty cool, and they’re often a closely held secret until the operation is over and the suspects are in custody.
Some of the more exotic and offbeat names of major Department of Homeland Security operations were revealed this week in a high-profile House of Representatives hearing on fighting the flow of fentanyl coming up through the Southeast border.
The hearing was particularly timely, since the U.S. is facing intensifying urgency to stop the worsening fentanyl crisis.
Drug deaths nationwide hit a new record of 109,680 people in 2022, according to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of them were overdose victims who unwittingly took black-market painkillers or recreational drugs laced with the lethal synthetic opioid that are being mass-produced by Mexican drug cartels.
By some estimates, there are scores, or even hundreds, of these federal efforts to counter the manufacturing, smuggling and sale of fentanyl and related problems, including human trafficking that that the cartels are also engaging in at increased levels. The Drug Enforcement Administration, for instance, has similar operations of its own, but falls under the Department of Justice, which goes before a different committee when it’s time for oversight.
The code names allow the U.S. government to focus various elements of an investigation, or a broader interagency process, toward one goal, officials say. They’re instrumental in marshalling all of the disparate threads of evidence and intelligence together, often from various filing and information-sharing systems. And they can help unify often-feuding agencies and dedicate their efforts toward the greater goal of keeping Americans safe.
“Most of all, it’s a coordination mechanism to let the (agents in the) field know that they’re all working on a similar theme,” Jack Kelly, a former DEA supervisory special age, told USA TODAY.
Kelly became known within federal law enforcement for creating appropriately named investigative initiatives that caught the attention of the White House, attorney general and top lawmakers. His Project Cassandra honored the Trojan priestess fated to utter true prophecies but never to be believed, as part of Kelly’s efforts to raise alarms about the convergence of drug trafficking and terrorism.
“You would hope it would also be a motivating factor for them to take each other’s cases into consideration instead of just doing what’s best for their own case,” Kelly said of code names. “You know, for the greater good.”
Here are some of the major counter-fentanyl operations by the Department of Homeland Security, whose names were revealed at the House Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee hearing.
Rep. Lou Correa of California said he wanted to bring them up − and discuss them − in order to get a sense of how DHS is attacking the fentanyl crisis from various directions.
“This is an excellent sign that we actually have people on the ground that understand the facts and are engaged in solving each and every aspect of the challenge in front of us, which is whether it’s money laundering or it’s the actual fentanyl trafficking,” Correa said in an interview Friday. “Because the challenge that we have is that this thing is massive,” in a reference to the fentanyl crisis.
Operations Blue Lotus and Four Horsemen: These Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, initiatives resulted in the seizure of nearly 10,000 pounds of fentanyl headed for U.S. communities, and led to 284 arrests. “I understand that the Department has used the insights gained from these two operations to launch the next phase of its campaign to target and prevent fentanyl from entering the United States,” Correa said.
Operation Artemis and Operation Rolling Wave: These are two newer CBP operations leveraging the intelligence gained through Blue Lotus and Four Horsemen. This next phase of the counter-fentanyl effort will consist of “jump teams” deployed at strategic locations around the U.S., with a focus on disrupting the supply chain used in the development and movement of fentanyl − especially its precursor chemicals used to manufacture it. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced the operation in June.
HSI, which is the Homeland Security Department’s main investigative agency, also will continue monitoring U.S. ports of entry, where 90 percent of fentanyl is trafficked primarily in cars and trucks, while also increasing its coordination of operations to target the fentanyl supply chain under Blue Lotus 2.0.
On Thursday, Mayorkas − visiting DHS contraband interdiction operations at the International Mail Facility at JFK International Airport in New York − said that Operation Artemis has stopped over 5,000 pounds of precursor chemicals used in the production of fentanyl in just its first few weeks. He said agents working on Artemis have also seized more than 60 pill presses and pill molds , over 300 pounds of methamphetamine and at least 5,000 pounds of other drugs.
“Operation Artemis is surging our personnel to interdict the flow of precursor chemicals, as well as the equipment used to manufacture methamphetamine,” Mayorkas said. “We are using all of our resources, all of our capabilities, and our tremendous creativity to guarantee traffickers will not get ahead of us.”
Operation Argus: A new Customs and Border Patrol initiative to run a parallel intelligence and analysis operation to Operations Blue Lotus 2.0 and Artemis and provide trade-focused analysis in support of them.
Operation Pelican Bones: An initiative by DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations division that seeks to disrupt the financial tools used by transnational criminal organizations to launder money. It’s a reflection, lawmakers and law enforcement officials said, that to take down the cartels and transnational criminal organizations that enable them, authorities need to go after their profits and supply chains, not just the drugs themselves. HSI falls under ICE, or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, within DHS.
Operation Hydra: Another HSI effort that uses computer-based analytic tools to go after TCO chemical supplies. targets equipment needed to manufacture pills; as well as additional personnel deployed at express consignment facilities.
Operation Chain Breaker: An effort to target the equipment needed to manufacture the black-market pills flooding U.S. communities from coast to coast after being produced in industrial-sized Mexican cartel “Superlabs” south of the border. It will also deploy additional agents at express consignment facilities.
“Initiatives like these are critical to dismantle illicit networks and limit TCOs’ financial access,” Correa said, using an acronym to describe transnational criminal organizations like the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.
During the hearing, Correa and the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., introduced bipartisan “Cooperation on Combatting Human Smuggling and Trafficking Act,” which would direct Homeland Security Investigations to expand its Transnational Criminal Investigative Units.
“These vetted and trained units of foreign law enforcement work with HSI to investigate transnational criminal organizations, aiming to stop human smuggling and the flow of dangerous drugs before they reach our borders,” Correa said.
Here’s another one not mentioned at Wednesday’s hearing that reflects the broader nature of some of the operations, including joint DHS-Justice Department efforts:
Operation Sentinel: A major initiative launched in 2021 by Mayorkas to focus on the transnational criminal organizations that smuggle migrants into the U.S. as well as drugs.
Operation Sentinel is a collaborative anti-smuggling initiative between three DHS entities − HSI, CBP and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services − and the State Department, and the FBI and DEA, which fall under the Justice Department.
“Smuggling operations continue to lie and exploit vulnerable populations to promote their criminal enterprise – the health and safety of migrants does not influence their lucrative ambition,” Top CBP official Troy Miller said. The operation “is designed to disrupt every facet of the logistical network of these criminal organizations” and enhance the overall security of the U.S. border.
