Operation: Operation
In June, U.S. Marshals worked with state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to apprehend 19,000 fugitives. Manuel Bonilla, who was wanted in Georgia on homicide charges, felt the cold snap of handcuffs when cops discovered him in Marshall, Missouri.
The roundup was called Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally). Cops, it turns out, really like giving their stings and sweeps code names, especially when they’re kicking over some yokel’s meth lab. So the Department of Burnt Ends offers this analysis of actual operation names.
Bust: Operation Buckshot
Description: Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies investigate an alleged meth ring in southwest Missouri. Seventeen defendants are indicted. A Milo man is charged with using meth while in possession of 26 rifles, 11 pistols, seven shotguns, four revolvers and blasting caps.
Appropriateness of name: It’s unclear whether cops found buckshot, but a gun store’s worth of goods seems to justify this one.
Bust: Operation Family Tree
Description: A multi-agency investigation into an alleged meth and pot ring in Oklahoma and southern Missouri results in several indictments. A defendant from Springfield admits in May that he participated in a conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of meth and pleads guilty to three separate weapons charges.
Appropriateness of name: What, did they expect that all the bad guys were related? Inbred?
Bust: Operation Raw Deal
Description: The largest steroid enforcement action in U.S. history targets Chinese suppliers, underground labs, Web sites and Internet bodybuilding discussion boards. Authorities arrest more than 120 people. A Kansas City man is alleged to have mailed vials of anabolic steroids from a Gladstone post office.
Appropriateness of name: With so many pumped-up clichés available, this is the best they could do?
Bust: Operation Ice Storm
Description: Multiple defendants receive prison sentences for distributing ice, a potent derivative of meth, in Jasper County, Missouri. At the time of his arrest, one participant in the enterprise had a .22-caliber handgun under the armrest of his car and a large knife concealed under his duster.
Appropriateness of name: Get it? They were targeting ice. And the cops were the storm.
Bust: Operation Leapfrog
Description: An Ozark, Missouri, man receives a 22-year prison sentence after a federal jury convicts him of participating in a conspiracy to distribute more than 500 grams of meth in Greene County. Eight co-defendants enter guilty pleas.
Appropriateness of name: Greene County. Frogs are green. Why not call it Operation Kermit?
Bust: Operation Lucky Charm
Description: Two Mexican nationals plead guilty after an investigation by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies into meth dealing in, yes, southwest Missouri.
Appropriateness of name: No idea. But it’s fun to imagine criminals circled around a table, slurping bowls of sugary cereal over plastic place mats.
Bust: Operation Stonewalled
Description: In a case that originated with the Leavenworth Police Department, the feds filed charges of trafficking in cocaine and meth against more than 40 people, many of them from Kansas City, Kansas.
Appropriateness of name: A reference to stone prison walls, perhaps, seems appropriate for a town defined by incarceration.
Bust: Operation Headhunter
Description: A federal grand jury indicts 15 people from the Joplin area for allegedly participating in a conspiracy to distribute large quantities of cocaine and marijuana.
Appropriateness of name: No apparent connection to recruiting companies or Amazonian cannibals.
