DEKALB BUST TIED TO RING
When Henry Zamora lost 6 kilograms of heroin in 2014 to cops in DeKalb, his bosses in an international drug- trafficking operation commiserated on their BlackBerry devices, federal authorities say.
“Dude that sucks. Just when it was going so well,” Franco “The Magician” Lombardi of Honduras allegedly told his supervisor Amado Chavez of Mexico.
But Chavez reassured him, “this business is like that. Selling is hard. . . . You’ll make up for it.”
Their exchange provides a glimpse into the workings of a ring that has helped feed the voracious appetites for heroin in the Chicago, Atlanta and New York areas in recent years, officials say.
A transcript of the conversation was included in a court filing on Monday in federal court in Chicago. Authorities are seeking to transfer Zamora and his alleged partner, Harry Madrid, to Newark, New Jersey, to face federal drug charges there.
Lombardi, according to news reports, is accused of being a top financial operator for the Sinaloa cartel headed by jailed drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Lombardi was arrested in April in Honduras.
Chavez was shot to death June 16 at a gas station in Cancun, Mexico, authorities say. Rival traffickers are suspected.
Zamora and Madrid lived in the Chicago area in 2014, delivering narcotics and laundering cash for the ring, prosecutors say. On Nov. 21, 2014, Zamora allegedly picked up a heroin shipment at a Wal- Mart parking lot in DeKalb before he was arrested.