Phoenix "kidnap-for-ransom capital" of the U.S.

Generally characterized as drug-related violence driven by gangs ripping off competitors, many of the kidnapping cases assigned to the city's robbery detectives involved masked gunmen armed with high-powered assault rifles and bulletproof vests, emulating tactical strike-team maneuvers to force others to forfeit drugs or cash.
But other experts said the crimes are primarily the work of small-time dealers trying to take advantage of the large number of stash houses scattered throughout the Valley, which serve as part of a nationwide distribution center for drug organizations. Phoenix police developed a task force in September to reduce the violence that led to 368 reported kidnappings in 2008.Last year's record kidnapping totals, combined with 337 home invasions, resulted in a 5 percent spike in citywide incidents since 2007. "It's about profit," said Lt. Lauri Burgett, the lead investigator assigned to the Phoenix-led home invasion and kidnapping task force.
"It's been a secret society in a lot of ways because so much of it goes unreported."
Burgett and her counterparts in Tucson say most extortion-related cases are tied to illegal drugs or other crimes. Immigration officials and prosecutors now join police weekly to discuss how to solve cases more effectively and to prevent the violence from impacting innocent residents."Sometimes these guys are so brazen, they hit the wrong house," Burgett said.

Since September, Burgett said, her task force has dismantled more than 20 cells, including five connected to the June 26 incident in which a group of gunmen - mistaken initially for military commandos or SWAT officers - fired more than 100 rounds into a drug house in a neighborhood near 83rd Avenue and McDowell Road. Police later reported that Andrew Williams, a Jamaican drug dealer killed in the shootout, was targeted by the group for marijuana and cash.

Incidents in which gangs of gunmen pose as police are common in Arizona, where the drug business is booming. In 2005, then-Gov. Janet Napolitano declared a "crisis" after a crime wave and again after another round of violence prompted a surge of border patrol agents in 2007. Drug dealers have waged violent battles over smuggling routes and territory as long as narcotics have been around, said Doug Coleman, a federal drug-enforcement agent in Phoenix, who sees the spike in kidnappings-for-ransom as a new twist on an old tactic. Coleman drew a distinction between the drug-related crimes in Arizona cities and skirmishes involving smugglers near the Mexican border. The notion of drug dealers targeting law-enforcement officials, as they've done in Mexico, or innocent Arizonans, would be counterproductive, Coleman said.Law enforcement seized nearly 900,000 pounds of marijuana between Arizona points of entry in 2007, and more pot is seized along the Arizona-Mexico border than any other Southwestern state, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Last year, a group of local and federal agents took down the Garibaldi-Lopez Drug Trafficking Organization, which has smuggled more than 2 million pounds of marijuana over the border in the last five years, with a wholesale value estimated at about $1 billion. Agents said the organization used proceeds from pot sales to finance their other operations.Tucson formed its police task force last year in the wake of 150 home invasions tied to as many as six murders, something Lt. Greg Roberts said sometimes leads to mistaken identity. Roberts, who oversees the city's special-investigations unit, used the example of one property owner who displaced a group of drug dealers from a rental home. Within a week, a new family moved into the house and they were the victims of a home invasion after the place was mistaken for a drug house. "One of the major differences when we have a legitimate victim who's not involved in the narcotics trade, they're a lot more forthcoming," Roberts said. "They don't hesitate to give us descriptions of suspects." The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has a group of prosecutors working with detectives as they investigate such cases, which increases the chance of a conviction, County Attorney Andrew Thomas said. "When you have people who are dealing with a type of offender day after day, and these are prosecutors who have selected this line of work because it appeals to them, they are very dedicated to getting the job done," Thomas said.