Mexican Drug Lord's Reach Stretches To Chicago Streets
Drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman is one of the major villains in Chicago's heroin epidemic, and his recent arrest in Mexico is sparking a debate over how the city's drug trade will be affected.
Chicago is the heroin hub for the Midwest, with cartels often using stash houses in quiet, residential neighborhoods. Last fall, for example, Chicago police raided a cute, quaint two-story house on the southwest side of the city and allegedly seized about $10 million worth of heroin.
"I mean, they don't want to have a large police presence where there's a lot of shootings or gang activity where there's gonna be a heightened sense of police awareness — more cars stopped, more people gone after — so they gravitate to that quieter neighborhood and they like to hide within the regular hardworking citizens," says Chicago Police Chief Nick Roti, who heads the organized crime investigative unit.
The drugs stored in these stash houses will likely end up heading north to Milwaukee or east to Detroit or south to Indianapolis — or they might just stay in Chicago.
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