FBI & DEA RAID Minnesota Official Tied to CJNG Lines | $47M Cash & Drugs EXPOSED

Just go to the other side of the line.

Go to the other side of the line.

At 4:22 a.m., federal agents stormed a Minneapolis target, expecting a routine takedown, and instead uncovered cartel money, cartel drugs, and a political nightmare.

23 cartel bricks, nearly $4.

7 million in cash, all tied to Mexican supply lines operating freely inside the city.

This exposed how deeply cartel infrastructure has penetrated Minneapolis and how long it’s been protected.

What agents found next explains why thousands are being arrested, why politicians are suddenly under scrutiny, and why this operation may be the biggest cartel reckoning the Midwest has ever seen.

A freezing winter night in Vades Heights, Minnesota, DEA agents moved in on a mid-level drug dealer who’d been operating out of a cheap motel room, serving customers who came and went at all hours.

Clinton James Ward, 45 years old, was caught with more than 8 lbs of methamphetamine in his vehicle.

That’s serious weight.

The kind of bus that typically ends with a decade behind bars.

Mr.Ward lived a life of luxury making millions of dollars uh trafficking uh methamphetamine and fentanyl.

Those days are over.

But Ward wasn’t your typical street dealer.

He had ambition.

And within weeks of posting bail and walking free, he made a decision that would transform Minnesota’s drug landscape forever.

He fled to Mexico to build something much bigger.

He landed in Jalisco, the stronghold of the Jaliscoco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s most violent and powerful criminal organizations.

And somehow this American drug dealer managed to do what very few outsiders accomplish.

He got a meeting with cartel leadership.

Within months, Ward forged connections with traffickers from both the CJNG and the Sinaloa cartel, two organizations that are responsible for flooding the United States with more methamphetamine, fentinyl, and cocaine than any other groups on Earth.

What did Ward bring to the table? Knowledge.

He knew the Minnesota market intimately.

He had established distribution networks, and most importantly, he knew how to move product through the upper Midwest without drawing federal heat.

The cartels needed someone like that, and Ward needed their supply.

In my over five years as United States attorney, this is one of the most sophisticated and significant drug trafficking organizations we have prosecuted.

From January 2019 until his arrest in March 2024, Ward operated what prosecutors called a Mexican storefront operation.

Customers in Minnesota would place orders.

Ward coordinated with the cartels and massive shipments would begin their journey north.

While Ward was building his empire in Jaliscoco, federal agents back in Minnesota weren’t sitting idle.

And this is a really dangerous job that these DEA agents face every day, but they are getting very dangerous drugs off of our streets.

The DEA Omaha division led a massive joint investigation with the FBI, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Minnesota State Patrol, and multiple county sheriff’s offices.

This was an all hands-on deck task force that spent 5 years building an airtight case against Ward and his entire distribution network.

They tracked shipments.

They flipped informants.

They built detailed profiles on every member of Ward’s Minnesota distribution network.

And one by one, they started taking them down.

With you, with you.

Over the course of the investigation, more than 50 defendants with connections to Ward were charged with methamphetamine trafficking and other drug offenses, but Ward himself remained in Mexico, protected by distance and cartel muscle.

Then in March 2024, Mexican federal authorities moved in.

On March 11th, 2024, Mexican law enforcement raided Ward’s location in Jalisco.

When they hit Ward’s residence, they discovered a drug warehouse, more than 1,600 lb of methamphetamine, 4 kg of cocaine, 2 kg of pure fentinel, 30,000 counterfeit fentinyl pills, 45 firearms, and more than 2.

5 million in cash.

Ward was immediately taken into custody and extradited to the United States to face federal prosecution.

But even as Ward sat in a holding cell, his distribution network in Minnesota kept operating.

The pipelines didn’t shut down just because the Kingpin got arrested.

The cartel simply found new people to run the same routes.

An undercover Minneapolis police officer made a controlled purchase of one pound of methamphetamine from Guiermo Marcato Chaparo on July 2nd.

Federal agents say two men have been arrested in connection to one of the largest drug bus in the state’s history.

Using surveillance and a GPS tracker secretly placed on Chaparo’s Toyota Tacoma, officers followed his movements over the next week.

On July 8th, they watched as Chaparo met up with another man, Joel Kasa Santiago.

Chaparro loaded two large bags into a jeep driven by Kasa Santiago.

Then both men got into separate vehicles and drove off.

That’s when the DEA coordinated simultaneous traffic stops.

When they searched the Jeep, they found 251 lbs of suspected methamphetamine.

When they searched the Toyota Tacoma, they found an additional 638 pounds of methamphetamine.

And investigators immediately linked both men to larger drug organizations operating out of Mexico.

Organizations that had direct ties to the infrastructure Clinton Ward built.

In December 2025, the Department of Homeland Security launched what they’re calling the largest immigration enforcement operation in American history.

Trump administration calls the worst of the worst.

We went through court records and found 11 filings since the operation started.

Four of those lawsuits involve people arrested during the ongoing operation.

Operation Metro Surge, 2,000 federal agents deployed to the Minneapolis St.

Paul area.

The stated mission, arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens with a specific focus on drug traffickers and gang members.

And what they’re finding is explosive.

Since the operation began, ICE has arrested over 2,500 criminal illegal aliens in Minnesota.

And a significant portion of these arrests involve individuals convicted of drug trafficking, specifically methamphetamine and cocaine distribution.

They get put in jail as an individual.

You do not hold an entire community or an entire city accountable for the actions of the fraudsters.

The list of drug traffickers arrested reads like a cartel roster.

Vang Pow Lee from Laos convicted of possession with intent to distribute and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Isaac Marin Ramirez from Mexico convicted of selling cocaine and amphetamine.

Basher Ali Kuli from Somalia convicted of drug trafficking.

Marco Antonio Harris Angulo from Mexico convicted of selling methamphetamine.

And here’s what federal investigators are discovering.

Many of these traffickers are using the exact same supply routes and distribution networks that Clinton Ward established between 2019 and 2024.

He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in this world.

The Sinaloa and CJNG cartel pipelines that Ward built didn’t disappear when he got arrested.

They just recruited new distributors.

But Operation Metro Surge has ignited a massive political battle.

The Trump administration and DHS are openly accusing Minnesota Governor Tim Walls and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey of deliberately protecting these cartel operatives through sanctuary policies.

According to DHS, since President Trump took office in January 2025, Governor Walls has refused to cooperate with ICE and has released nearly 470 criminal illegal aliens back onto the streets of Minnesota.

And if you see these ICE agents in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record.

Help us create a database of the atrocities against motans.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was even more direct.

I have a message for ICE to ICE.

Get the out of Minneapolis.

The operation has triggered massive protests across Minneapolis.

On January 7th, 2026, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good during a confrontation.

You just [ __ ] What the [ __ ] did you do? Sparking even more violent demonstrations, but federal authorities aren’t backing down.

DHS Secretary Christy Noam herself has been on the streets accompanying ICE agents during arrests.

ICE agents are following the law and running their operations according to training.

The political battle has become a national story.

I just saw a video of more than six masked agents uh pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death.

How many more residents, how many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end? But behind the rhetoric, the facts are undeniable.

The same cartel infrastructure that Clinton Ward built is still operational, and it’s still destroying Minnesota communities.

The scale of the cartel infiltration in Minnesota is staggering.

According to DEA acting special agent in charge, Raphael Mate, the agency seized more than 2,000 pounds of methamphetamine in Minnesota in 2024 alone.

Think about that evolution.

One pound was a major victory a decade ago.

Now they’re routinely seizing hundreds of pounds at a time.

The cartels have changed their strategy.

Instead of frequent small shipments, they’re consolidating into massive loads.

One shot, one delivery, maximum product.

In June 2025, federal agents found 900 lb of crystal methamphetamine concealed in metal spools at a Burnsville storage unit.

The street value at least $22 million.

That discovery triggered eight search warrants across the Twin Cities, targeting locations connected to controlled substances, money laundering, bank fraud, human trafficking, and firearms.

SEARCH.

The cartels are also using increasingly sophisticated concealment methods.

Drugs hidden in refrigerated trucks carrying blueberries.

RVs driven by elderly couples who look like innocent tourists.

The 1,600 lb seized from Ward’s operation alone represents enough methamphetamine to provide more than 380 doses to every single person who could fill Target Field in Minneapolis.

And that’s just what was seized.

How much actually made it to the streets over those 5 years? How many lives were destroyed? The counterfeit fentinel pills are even deadlier.

Fentinyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.

Just 2 mg, an amount that fits on the tip of a pencil, can be lethal.

According to the Department of Justice, since January 2025, the DEA has seized approximately 44 million fentinel pills, 4,500 lb of fentanyl powder, and made over 2,15 fentinyl related arrests.

Every one of those pills could have been the one that killed someone’s child, someone’s parent, someone’s sibling.

The DEA’s strategy is clear.

Disrupt supply lines, make arrests, seize product, make it too expensive and too risky for the cartels to operate.

But the political battle with Minnesota’s Democratic leadership is complicating that mission.

Federal agents say they’re fighting a two-front war.

One against the cartels and another against local politicians who refuse to honor ICE detainers.

So, what do you think? Is Operation Metro Surge actually dismantling the cartel networks Clinton Ward built? or is this just a political show while the real kingpins keep operating from Mexico? Drop your thoughts in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe for more breaking investigations like this one.