Colorado Raids Linked to DOJ Memo Violations, Drug Gangs

On Thursday November 21, US law enforcement agents, along with local police officers raided 14 medical marijuana locations around Colorado (including dispensaries, grow warehouses and two private residences), making it one of the largest federal raids since the state’s medical marijuana laws went into effect. A search warrant identifies 10 target subjects, noting alleged violations to the latest DOJ memo dealing with state pot laws that contradict federal policy.

On August 29th, the Justice Department issued a memo to federal prosecutors indicating it wouldn’t interfere with legal marijuana businesses that are acting compliance with state law, so long as they strictly adhere to eight specific areas of concern such as preventing distribution to minors and cultivation on public lands. Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice in Denver said that “there are strong indications that more than one of the eight federal prosecution priorities identified in the Department of Justice’s August guidance memo are potentially implicated.” Two of those violations appear to include trafficking marijuana outside of states where it has been legalized and money laundering. No arrests have been made in this case as of yet.

Many of the locations raided on Thursday had multiple marijuana-related businesses at a single address. According to the Denver Post, “Investigators believe the businesses that were raided are all “one big operation…[and that] those targeted in the raids had been actively purchasing area dispensaries and growhouses over a sustained period of time.”

Juan Guardarrama, one of the named targets, is known to have a criminal history with potential ties to Cuban and Colombian drug gangs, according to the Miami Herald. In 2012 Guardarrama, who is also referred to as “Tony Montana” from the Al Pacino movie “Scarface,” asked undercover police officers to transport his CO-grown marijuana to Florida and to ”take out” his partner. He pleaded guilty earlier this year in Miami in a racketeering case.

This case clearly has a lot of moving parts, and more information is needed to understand the full scope of the situation. But, if evidence proves that there have been large-scale violations to any of the recent DOJ memo’s eight areas of concern, one can’t be surprised that the federal government would act in accordance to its own guidelines. As more information emerges, the public will get a better understanding of the story and the alleged players involved in this operation.

Article republished from NORML