With impeachment push against Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas gathering momentum, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told U.S. lawmakers his state is being “overrun” by international crime syndicates.
Drummond testified before the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee Wednesday in a hearing that was part of that committee’s impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas.
Drummond said Oklahoma citizens are facing many dangers due to a “porous” border and alleged failure of the federal government to enforce the law.
Drummond turned the clock back to Nov. 20, 2022 when police responded to a quadruple homicide.
Authorities said a Chinese national allegedly entered a garage on a 10-acre marijuana farm in Kingfisher County, pulled out a handgun and kept it trained on a group of people – also Chinese nationals – who were inside.
He said they owed him $300,000 that he’d invested in the grow operation, and that they had exactly 30 minutes to pay up or he would kill them all. According to investigators, the assailant killed three men, execution-style, with gunshots to the back of the head, and one woman with two shots to the abdomen. Another man sustained a gunshot wound but survived after being airlifted for emergency surgery.
Drummond said it took personnel from six law enforcement agencies to process the “gruesome” crime scene. Police arrested the suspect in Florida 2 days later.
“The carnage of that day is but one tragic example of a failed system plagued by failing leadership,” Drummond said.
“Throughout Oklahoma, law enforcement comes into daily contact with foreign nationals who entered our country illegally or who remain here illegally — or both.”
Oklahoma’s illegal marijuana grow operations are a main culprit, he said. When though voters legalized medical marijuana in 2018, organized criminals from Mexico and China have overtaken the industry, and law enforcement has identified individuals from many other countries, to include Cuba, Bulgaria and Russia.
Criminal illegal immigrants are not content with only growing black-market marijuana, but are producing and distributing fentanyl and engaging in sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
Drummond described how foreign nationals have infiltrated the medical marijuana industry, The pattern is a common one. Conducting a “straw” purchase of rural property just outside city limits.
“Sometimes they have a front man lease the real estate. Either way, they take steps to conceal their activities.
“It is common to see that they have pushed up a berm to prevent visibility from the roads. They often will post armed personnel to stand watch and imply threat.
“You can imagine the impact these kinds of actions have in communities throughout rural Oklahoma. Families are scared. They feel unsafe. Smaller law enforcement departments are literally out-manned and out-gunned, and they feel ill-equipped to address the threat.”
Drummond petitioned Oklahoma lawmakers for more resources and broader authority to combat the threat and said they responded with millions of dollars for equipment and personnel. They also granted Drummond’s office more power to “fight this criminal epidemic being fueled by the border crisis.”
He established the Organized Crime Task Force, the first of its kind for Oklahoma. “And, of course, it is needed because federal officials have failed to enforce the law and secure the border.
Drummond said that in the first 7 months since its creation the task force has investigated and is prosecuting more than 50 “complex, multi-jurisdictional criminal cases. The vast majority of these cases involve Mexican or Chinese drug syndicates.”
Law enforcement in their investigations have discovered rampant building-code violations that, in turn, have led to fires and explosions, Drummond noted.
In one case alone, fire at an illegal marijuana grow destroyed more than 10,000 acres and necessitated deploying the National Guard and other agencies across Oklahoma and Texas, he said.
Since demanding strict enforcement of building codes due to these incidents, approximately one-half of the marijuana grows in the state were found to be out of compliance, he said.
“That translates to thousands of unsafe operations across Oklahoma, putting lives and communities at risk. These foreign actors are creating additional costs that cannot fully be quantified,” Drummond said.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections currently houses nearly 500 illegal immigrants convicted of state crimes, he noted. At an average cost of $63.53 per inmate per day, the State of Oklahoma pays roughly $11 million per year to incarcerate criminal illegals.
“Before those criminal aliens were sent to the Department of Corrections, they were in the custody of a local jail, who have their own costs for housing.”
It is important to note, Drummond said, that the illegal immigrant population in Oklahoma is vulnerable to exploitation.
Every case being investigated by the Organized Crime Task Force involves some level of undocumented labor trafficking. Law enforcement is seeing this particularly in operations run by Chinese nationals, he said.
“Officers see tell-tale signs such as abandoned and substandard living conditions for workers and a complete disregard for human welfare, not to mention countless Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations,” he told lawmakers.
“We have examples of illegal workers being fed from dog-food bowls, and our agents plan to begin using cadaver dogs to find potential unknown victims of these wretched conditions.”
During an investigation into illegal drug activities by Chinese nationals, Drummond said, agents coordinated with other law enforcement to serve simultaneous warrants on multiple addresses.
At one location, agents found two female Chinese nationals, who spoke no English. Mattresses on the floor of their bedroom were littered with condoms, lotion and other unsavory supplies.
The women had been in the country for months, but they could not say where they were and they had not been out of the house since their arrival, he said. “They simply awoke every day, worked and went back to sleep.”
“These foreign actors are blatant and cavalier in their efforts. Our investigators are finding job advertisements on international websites targeting and recruiting poor and rural Chinese.
“Illegal aliens forced into this clandestine world have nowhere to turn,” he said. “On the occasions that Oklahoma law enforcement does find people at these operations, agents resort to Google Translate attempting to communicate with Mandarin-speaking workers.
“The agents contact HSI, but invariably they are told that the system is too overloaded for the federal government to assist. In the end, our officers know it doesn’t really matter whether HSI responds. We confirm that anyone brought in to HSI will simply be released. Without appropriate recourse, officers typically are forced to leave the victimized illegal aliens where they were found.”
When asked what Congress could do to better empower prosecutors and investigators, Drummond repeated his request for drug cartels to be declared as foreign terrorist organizations.
Less than a year ago, Drummond joined a coalition of 21 states, calling on President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken make the same request.
Advocates have said the designation would free up much-needed resources to confront the deadly opioid crisis gripping the U.S.
Designating major cartels as FTOs will give state and federal law enforcement agencies increased authority to freeze cartel assets, deny entry to cartel members and allow prosecutors to pursue stricter punishments against those who provide them material support.
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