Location Arizona, United States | ||
Result Successful operation, $$950,000 seized. | ||
Lifemates operation coyote
Operation Coyote was a United States Department of Homeland Security effort to track and seize revenue generated by Mexican cartels in the human smuggling industry along the United States-Mexico border. From June to September 2014, U.S. agents seized $950,000 in 504 accounts at undisclosed banks in Arizona, Texas and Maryland. Homeland Security also reported that in this time period, human smuggling generated $50 million, mainly in the Reynosa area of Tamaulipas, and through tracking the revenue uncovered links between factions of the splintered Gulf Cartel of northeastern Mexico with the local Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel in the northwest of Mexico. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, commented on the operation in August 2014, announcing that 363 smugglers and their associates had been arrested and more than $800,000 in illicit payments seized.