Feds Arrest Dozens In Dallas Drug Raids

As many as 300 members of a violent drug cartel are behind bars after a series of coordinated nationwide busts Wednesday.

Drug Enforcement Agency agents and local law enforcement in cities all over the country, including several in North Texas, arrested the gang members. Dozens were also arrested in Atlanta and Los Angeles.

Court documents show a federal grand jury in Dallas has indicted 90 people from North Texas alone. About 30 of them appeared before a federal judge Wednesday, with others expected later in the week.

The raids targeted members of the La Familia drug cartel and other drug smugglers.

Sources tell us some of those indicted in Dallas are members of the violent gang, but all of those targeted got their drugs from the group.

We're told the top defendant among those indicted in Dallas is Miguel Beraza-Villa, known as "La Troca."

"Troca" is Spanglish for "truck."

Beraza-Villa is one of 34 people arrested in Mexico in August as part of a drug sweep there. Sources say he will be brought to Dallas to face charges.

Sources say La Familia smuggled methamphetamine and cocaine from Michoacan, Mexico to the United States.

Beraza-Villa said to have led a team of 40 people who smuggled two or three shipments of drugs to the U.S. each week.

Court documents unsealed in Dallas Wednesday say the gang used some North Texas homes as stash houses and wired or delivered cash to Mexico.

People who live in one Dallas neighborhood where a raid took place Wednesday morning say federal agents and local police swarmed a house there.

"SWAT surrounded the house," said Joy Cisco. "They had a swat truck in a front, drug dogs sniffing, just cops everywhere."

The people indicted in Dallas face charges like drug distribution and money laundering.

Federal authorities plan to hold a news conference Thursday to release more information about the raids and the indictments.

Special thanks for TV Channel 11 in Dallas for this data.